Getting the finger (back to healthy)

Sometime in January I got an infection around the base and cuticle of my right index finger. I'm not sure how; anyway, it was annoying, and late in the month I finally decided to try lancing and draining it. That helped a little, but I didn't do a very good job of it. The infection got worse, home treatment didn't help, and when I saw my nail starting to turn white (the infection spreading underneath) I finally went to a walk-in clinic, figuring this wasn't so complicated I should try for my regular physician or the local emergency room.

I was right, it wasn't complicated. I asked the attending doctor if I might lose the nail; he replied it was possible, but that it would grow back, no permanent harm. That was encouraging. The doctor prescribed me two different antibiotics, standard ten-day courses, and decided to perform his own lancing, telling me he was going to pierce my fingernail. That gave me pause, as it sounded, well, unpleasant. I asked if he was going to give me a local anasthetic. Nope. I said it sounded painful; he replied it would only be a little bit so, said he was going to get his "drilling kit", and left for a few minutes.

I got to sit there, thinking about what having my un-numbed fingernail pierced would be like.

The doctor came back with, oh, a double-aught gauge hypodermic, or something about that size. I held my hand flat on the table on a pad, and he cored a hole into the center back end of my nail. Yes, it hurt; not nearly the worst pain I've ever had, and I didn't flinch, but it hurt. He inspected his work and decided he hadn't gotten deep enough; the needle re-cored my nail. Deeper hurts worse; but this time he struck oil, or at least blood, which leaked out a good bit. Then he had me immerse my finger into a cup of peroxide for a few minutes; it foamed up like a high school science project volcano, killing the bad things and cleaning my finger quite well. When a nurse came around to clean and bandage my finger, there was only a little bit of peroxide left in the cup. She wrapped a complicated, full-finger bandage around my digit and told me to keep it on for two days. It lasted 36 hours, but I re-wrapped it well after the first bandage gave up. A checkup four days later resulted in a prognosis that the healing was well underway and to continue with the antibiotics and general cleaning and bandaging.

I finished the antibiotics earlier this week; the infection is long dead. The back end of my nail, which was starting to become visible when I went to the clinic, is now well up my finger, and a bit of baby nail material is growing behind it. Here, have a look:



The yellowish area is where my nail has separated from the finger. I typically keep an adhesive bandage on it during the day, mainly to prevent it from snagging on anything and possibly separating more. It doesn't hurt but I see no point in letting it get abused more. Earlier today I did something to further prevent snag potential, something which, I expect, few people have ever done. It only took a few seconds.

Today I trimmed the back of my fingernail.

Anyway... glad to have my finger heading back to healthy (even if it looks weirdly mangled). My kids find it amusing, and I got a strong reminder not to let infections linger. My arm still tenses a bit when I think of the piercing.