My Toesies.

This morning I am going to whine about my big toes.  They hurt.  A lot.

Every two weeks for the last 15 years, I have been getting a manicure and a pedicure.  The toe nails, on my big toes especially, will curl inwards and grown down in and cause pain if not trimmed properly. They've always been that way.  I have horrifying memories of my mother cutting away at them, making them hurt even more.  It's scary being held down as a child and having your toes dug into.   In fact, I never wanted anybody to ever touch my feet again because of those memories, so I spent years cutting my own toe nails and usually just making them worse.  I remember causing several bad infections in my toes from my own ineptitude.

Finally, I decided to have a professional pedicure, along with a manicure, for Evey's Bat Mitzvah in the year 2000.  Since I always bit my nails terribly and also kept them short to play piano and guitar, I had decided it would be cool to have long nails for the bat mitzvah day.  I got the nails lengthened with the acrylic product that was as hard as rocks.  I loved it and I was hooked.  I started going regularly to the same salon in Maryland every two weeks until we moved to Florida.  Even there I never really liked the pedicures.  It still hurt.  The nail tech always seemed to dig around in there and cut a lot of stuff, and it always hurt.  She even made my hands and toes bleed sometimes, cutting too much on the toes or grinding the nails with the electric grinder on the fingers.  But I kept going back!

Then we came to Florida.  Pedicures got much better here because Nicole, my nail tech, really knows how to do them right.  She trims them just right.  It never hurts and they look great.  She also got me off the acrylics and on to the gel nails, which is much nicer as well.  There is no grinding involved anymore.  There are no "oops" moments when the grinder catches the tender skin instead o the hard nail.

Occasionally, I have had my nails done somewhere else, like in Maryland before Lowell's wedding or on a cruise ship, when I can't get to Nicole.  That doesn't always work so well for me.  In fact, the salon in Maryland before the wedding did a real butcher job. I got an infection in my toes, and Nicole had her skills tested to the max trying to get me back to normal.

Well, now something else is wrong.  Nicole did her usually great job on my regularly scheduled appointment this past Tuesday.  They look great, all ready for the cruise that starts Saturday.  But I woke up Wednesday morning and realized that both big toes hurt.  I couldn't stand to have the sheet on the bed touch the top of my toes.  My bedroom slippers even hurt as they touched the tops of the toes.  I looked at them and the nails seem not to be growing in.  So I just let it go and as the day went on, they hurt less.  Then Thursday morning I woke up the same way....and Friday morning....and Saturday and today.  This morning I looked at them again and decided that the right toe is starting to look red and swollen.  I am fearing some kind of infection, and yet the nail still looks fine.

I have no idea what is going on.  It almost seems like there is some infection starting under the nail.  Weird.

So this morning I sent a private FB message to Nicole and asked her if I could come in either Monday or Wednesday morning to have her take the polish off so we can see under it and to have her look at what I'm seeing.  Maybe she can see something I don't.  Then I think I might try to see a doctor before the cruise in case I need to get an antibiotic.  The last thing I need right now is to have an infection in my toes while at sea.  Geez.  Ridiculous timing.

Meanwhile, today we are meeting Susie and Ed at 10:45 this morning to drive up to Winter Garden, stroll around the picturesque old downtown area, pick a restaurant from the many there for lunch, and then go to the 2 p.m  live performance of a Broadway musical called Hands on a Hardbody.  We had never heard of it before, but it got a few Tony nominations, although no wins.  It's about people in Texas trying to win a truck by keeping their hands on the body of the truck.  Whoever lasts the longest wins the truck.  We'll probably enjoy it no matter what.