my wonky thumbnail

Shortly after the new year began, I noticed a bump on my right thumbnail. At the very center, starting at the cuticle. It was kind of weird, and the bump started growing outward throughout the weeks.

It weirded me out a bit, if I'm being honest with you. Because I hadn't smashed my thumb or anything like unto it, y'know? I hadn't earned it.

Initially, I thought it was, perhaps, a thickening of the nail, so I grabbed a nail file, and I sanded it down.

That. Was. A giant mistake. And rather painful...

As it turns out, it wasn't a thickening of the middle part of my nail at all, but the bump came from underneath the nail itself. Ergo, I essentially filed my nail to almost skin-level down there by the cuticle. (If you don't understand how that feels, go ahead and try doing what I did. But really: DON'T TRY IT. Just take my word for it that it was painful, okay?)

Aaaanyway, I was hanging out with Jami one afternoon (when we were working on my dining room set) and I showed her my wonky nail, and she was kinda freaked out by it and encouraged me to go to the doctor about it.

So I did.

I sought medical help over my wonky thumbnail. And I sat in that doctor's office for the better part of 40 minutes while the PA poured of a medical book or two, trying to figure out what the what was going on with my right thumb.

My thumbnail problem was that weird, folks.

I took this picture a few days after visiting the doc.

When he figured out what it was, he came in to tell me about it.

It's called median nail dystrophy, folks, and there is no known cause. It only happens on the thumb nails, although sometimes it's bilateral. (Sooo grateful it's just my right thumb, I have to say.) Also, sometimes it happens on the big toenails. (Once again, I'm thrilled it skipped my toes altogether.) Starting at the cuticle, right in the middle, the nail either grows out with a bump, or else it starts splitting. And sometimes when it splits, it looks like a fir tree. There's no cure for it; it just grows out.

I was super bummed, because I'm vain when it comes to my nails, I suppose. I went home and googled "median nail dystrophy" and read up on it; in addition to what the PA said, I discovered that when it grows out, there's no exact time table. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes it takes years.

Then I went ahead and looked at the google images of MND, and I felt sick and kind of depressed. Because the "thumb cracking to look like a fir tree" was simultaneously accurate and inaccurate. Some of those pictures were gross, and I kept thinking I'd have to cover my thumb with BandAids until the nastiness grew out, you know?

Also, I (maybe, a little bit) started praying, since my nails grow fast, that the wonk might not, in fact, last years.

Shortly after I visited the doctor, my nail started to crack.

It's lovely, isn't it?

More cracking.

This picture was titled "March 9"

And this one was titled "End of March"

On April Fools Day, it hit me that the wonk was, in fact, growing out!!

Mid-April...

April 17th

Yesterday

 I can't tell you how happy I am that this...median nail dystrophy...is leaving my body. THE WONK IS ALMOST GONE!

*I totally wasn't going to post anything about this, because YUCK. But now that it's almost gone (yay, hooray!), I'm less sensitive about it. And also: I kind of want to remember this, in case it ever comes back (heaven forbid!). 

I hope that I haven't grossed any of you out too badly. I also hope that median nail dystrophy never graces any of your thumbs...

advanced first aid, ricks college style

I was reminded of the term "degloving"today; a term I haven't heard or even thought about in years. *If you don't know what degloving is, don't Google it. DON'T! It's disgusting and horrific, and there are images that will appear on your screen that you just can't un-see. I'll verbally explain "degloving" in due time.

This is kind of a hint, but hold tight...

I was a freshman at Ricks College. My professor was a man we'll call "Jim." And the "advanced" part of this particular first aid class was that we not only learned what to do in emergency situations; we learned about injuries in-depth: when and how they happen, what they look like, etc., etc.

Jim, I think, loved teaching this class. And he liked to play a game I called "Name That Injury." I'm pretty sure you get the gist of the game by the title I gave it, yes?

On the few occasions that we played Name That Injury, Jim would turn on the overhead projector, shut off the lights, and rub his hands together in fiendish delight. (That last part is probably inaccurate, but I swear that's how I see it in my head all these years later.)

I've never had a strong stomach. Not ever. And the very thought of having to look at pictures of heinous injuries made me nervous and queasy. In fact, I still get a bit light headed as I flash back to images I had to see in that class.

But I digress...

Before each image would flash onscreen, I'd look down and take special interest in my hands or my pen, maybe rest my head on my desk. I'd wait for the inevitable gasp from my fellow students, and I'd try to gauge exactly how bad the injury was based on their reactions.

"What do you think happened here?" Jim would say in a voice I deemed much too chipper for such an occasion, as he called on students at random.

I'd brace myself, take a deep breath, and find the courage to look up at the image presented.

"A motorcycle accident?" one student would guess.

"Oh, I can see why you might think that! But, no. This was a bear attack." The person pictured was missing half of his (or her?) face, down to the skull.

Image: someone's calf, cut at a steep angle, to the bone. "What happened here?"

"Umm...a sword?" another student would wager.

"Nope. Badger attack." (Can badgers really do that? Am I remembering this wrong? It was an awful game for me to take part in, and I might not remember all the facts. But this was traumatic enough that these memories feel solid and accurate, and I swear he said "badger attack.")

Image: horribly mangled hand.

"Blender?" This was my guess.

"Ooo, close! Garbage disposal!" Jim exclaimed. (Do you feel bad for me? That he called my name on such a particularly disgusting picture?)

More images. More wild guesses. Sometimes we guessed right, sometimes not. Always, I would look down before the next picture flashed across the screen, always a collective gasp, always searching my soul for courage to look up just in case he called on me again...

Are you ready to hear about degloving?

Brace yourself.

Think of removing a glove from you hand. But the glove is your skin, severing the blood supply and all that garbage. It doesn't have to be your hand to be considered degloving; it might be a finger or a limb. That image in your mind is hideous enough without graphic representation, I assure you. (Don't Google it!)

Anyway...despite being grossed out by downright appalling pictures of profound injuries, I really did like the class overall, and it's difficult to explain why...

The way Jim talked about animal attacks and motorcycle accidents and everything in between was enough to make you paranoid, make you want to avoid nature at all costs. He outright refused to wear rings because of an increased chance of being degloved. But man, he was passionate about that class. And as I recall, he was an avid outdoorsman; he educated himself and was smart about his outdoor adventures, he lived his life (ring-free), and encouraged us to do the same.

"Cool Facts"

I've got an app on my trusty iPod Touch. An app that I feel quite certain wasn't on my iPod when I bought it brand new a year and a half ago, but I also have no recollection of searching for and downloading in the app store. Weird.

Anyway, this application is called CoolFacts, and I must say, it has provided me with quite a bit of entertainment.

Who needs Angry Birds, anyway? (Read: I did, at one point. It's still here on my trusty iPod, but it's better if I just ignore that app, because it takes away years of my life in one stretch. Do you know what I mean?)

But I digress...

This app is wonderful, because you download it once, and you've got 10,00+ "cool facts" on your device, no internet necessary when you want to peruse said "cool facts." (I'm too cheap to buy an iPhone and pay for the 4G package deal, but that's another story for another time.)

CoolFacts is entertaining for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: the grammar is sometimes ridiculous, some of the facts seems so far-out that you have to Google said information to check its validity (thank heaven for Google, am I right?!), sometimes the wording is a smidge confusing, and...well, time just flies on by when you're slurping up all this knowledge on, say, your lunch break (for example).

Just the other day, I checked out CoolFacts during lunch, and here are a number of gems I deemed worthy of sharing:

According to Wikipedia (gospel truth, right?), it states that the tauatara "are...unusual in having a pronounced
photoreceptive eye dubbed the "third eye", whose current function is a subject of ongoing research,
but is thought to be involved in setting circadian and seasonal cycles."

Any fact regarding rodents (most especially mice and rats), I love.
Not because I like them (ick), but because Jami hates them more than anyone else I know.
So, naturally, I send directly to her iPhone.

Fact.

Here's anexample of CoolFact phrasing that annoys me.
"A freakishly athletic human being, who has no fins or gills, can only swim 4 mph.
Compare that to ridiculously fast fishes, that are, in fact, born swimmers:
they can out-swim the mere human by at least 64 mph."
Frankly, I think swimming one single mile might just kill me.
And I daresay it'd take me much longer than 15 minutes.
Just sayin'.

I wonder if the great state of Idaho saw any of that research money...?

Lucky John Quincy (and Louisa) Adams,eh?

Wow. Just...WOW. Six feet is taller than the average man, did you know?
That's a long drop, that's all I'm saying.

This is actually true! How appropriate is that?!

I didn't even bother to check if this was true.
Bachelors have three chances of me calling them MASTER,
and they are: slim, fat, and none.

Every time I read this, I can't help but imagine a human being
actually making the trek through a blue whale's aorta.
And it freaks me out a bit.

 Anyway, if you haven't already downloaded the CoolFacts app, it's something to consider....

Jami likes this app, too. This picture was taken yesterday
while she was waiting for a client to come.

You're welcome, I guess...