The Incident of the Toenail

(Graphic descriptions, so don’t read it if you’re one to get queasy at the mention of blood).

I got a temp receptionist job in midtown, NYC, for the week before Labor Day weekend. Everything was fine, bored out of my mind, but making money. That Thursday evening at the end of the day- 5 pm, I went to the bathroom before leaving the office. As I left the restroom, I pulled the very heavy metal door open onto my left foot, which was unfortunate as I was wearing an open toe shoe. It happened so fucking fast. I walked out of the bathroom into the hall, stopped because it hurt way more than it should have.

I looked down and thought “now that really just does not look right.”

Then the pain hit. I crouched down and saw that the nail looked ripped off but still somewhat attached at the bottom right corner of the nail-bed. I quickly tapped it back down, and grabbed my foot because the throbbing really began to kick in. This really sweet woman who worked for my employer’s client walked out of the office and saw me on the floor.

“Oh my god, is everything ok?” which it wasn’t. I saw the blood start to well up underneath the nail and turn a lovely shade of purplish-blue. She saw it too.

I started to bleed. On my shoe.

“Honey, why don’t you take your shoe off? You don’t want to bleed all over it.”

 So I slipped the shoe off. Then I just stood there dripping blood onto the carpet out in the hallway right outside the bathroom.

“Um, why don’t we go into the bathroom, so you can bleed on the tile…”

You never think that you could bleed sooooo much just from your toe, but you can.

“Maybe you should go to the emergency room,” and I swear to you the vaguely hysterical thought that ran through my head, and I think I actually muttered it aloud was:

“This isn’t so bad, it can heal on its own just fine, I don’t need the emergency room, really I don’t.”

 She ran and got the first aid kit, pulled out the largest band-aid they had. Finally  some clarity and common sense set in:

“I don’t think that’s going to do it.”

 I took out gauze and the gauze tape, asked for a scissor which she promptly went to fetch. I wrapped my toe up, easy as you please. Maybe a total of 5-10 minutes had gone by at this point. She went to my employer’s office on the floor below to find out what should be done with me. While she was gone I cleaned my blood off the floor. A very interesting experience, I must say. I think I popped about 5 ibuprofen tablets so I wouldn’t be in total pain after the shock wore off (again, some belated common sense kicking in).

After a few minutes she comes back with this girl who works in the HR division of the company and knows to ask me certain questions considering it a work related injury.

“Shouldn’t we call your temp agency? This could be considered a work related injury.”

At which point a little bubble of hysterical laughter escaped.

“A work injury? Are you kidding me? I did this to myself, opened the door on my own damn foot. How dumb is that?!!”

“Have you called your parents yet?”

“My parents?”

“Yeah, if something like this happened to me I’d call them the first thing.” It’s been a half hour so far, and I had yet to think to call my own parents. I forgot that my parents were on vacation and called my dad’s cell thinking he could take me to the hospital since his office was literally across the avenue from where I was temping.

A handful of minutes later it hits me that they’re somewhere in Massachusetts. I called my mom’s cell. I swear to you I was totally under control up until that moment. Certainly shocked and slow-witted, but not crying, not super-hysterical, nothing. I called my mom’s cell and the minute I heard her voice I cracked the fuck up. I could barely get the words out I was laughing and crying so hysterically. I actually hyperventilated a little. It was ridiculous. She finally got me to calm down enough to explain what the hell happened.

“You have to go to the emergency room, to either Roosevelt or Lenox Hill. Do you have cash for a taxi? No? Go to an ATM, get cash, take a taxi to either of those hospitals, perhaps find out which one is the closest. Call Ari (my brother), and if you can’t get a hold of Ari, call Adina (my sister-in-law).”

 I called him. I cannot imagine being on the receiving end of the message I left him. I was crying and trying to control myself, but utterly failing as I bawled that it’s an emergency and I needed him to come get me.

I called Adina since I couldn’t reach him, and then she didn’t answer either. I admit I began to panic a little. I called my mom back.

“You’re going to have to ask someone in the office to help you get cash, hail a cab for you, and get yourself to the ER.” I really didn’t want that to happen. So I tried Ari and Adina again and still got nothing.

I sat around feeling like a chicken without a head when I had an epiphany. I have a fucking roommate! Who works in midtown! Call her you ass!

I reached her just before she went down into the subway to head back to our apartment on the Upper West Side. She told me later on that I’m such a crazy person, when I called her, this was how the conversation sounded on her end:

“(Laugh) Hi? How are you?”

“I’m fine, what’s up?”

“Where are you? You haven’t gone back to the apartment yet have you?”

“No, I was about to head onto the subway.”

“Yeh, (laugh) I kind of ripped the nail off my toe and need to go to the emergency room, can you come with me?” talking like it’s the most normal thing in the world, as if I were asking her to join me for a cup of coffee.

By the time she made it over to my office building it was 6:20. I had to walk on the streets of NYC barefoot- I do not recommend it. Turns the bottoms of your feet black.  We got to Lenox Hill around 6:40. I guess I should be happy that my case was semi-priority; I was seen before a lot of other people who were there before me.

In the end, the doctor cut the nail out. I had gashed myself quite nicely under the nail which was a reason for the insane bleeding. So she gave me a few stitches (of course the shots to numb the toe up always hurt like a bitch). Then she reinserted the old nail under the flap of skin of the nail-bed. Doing it that way meant the new nail could just push the old one out as it grew in. I was told to follow up with an orthopedist because, the metal door being so fucking heavy, I even fractured the bone in my toe. Ilana (the roomie) was great and stayed with me the entire time. When all was said and done, even after going to CVS to fill prescriptions for vicodin and an antibiotic, we got back to the apartment at 10:30.

After some debating I went into work for the last day of the temp job.

Behind the desk was a tv screen on mute. Whiling away the time I watched to see what was going on with the world. It was August 29^th and John McCain was announcing his running mate- Sarah Palin.

My first thought: “Who the fuck is Sarah Palin?”