The Patient Survived, But the Doctor Nearly Died

Now you've gone an done it! I TOLD you not to get me started on the piano. This little incident was not even a blip on Val's radar when that piano talk was going on. But now it is. Center target. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Like in Aliens, when Ripley and her crew were trapped, watching those critters come from all directions, surrounding them.

Here's the culprit. The bringer of misery to Thevictorian household. I've hope you've got some weekend time budgeted for a long read. I could put this out in installments, but Val likes to rip off the Band-Aid in one swift motion.

Not only did Hick take Val's rocking chair, the one in which she rocked her sweet, sweet young 'uns, and put it on the porch to be a poster chair for not using Thompson's Water Seal...he parked my mom's piano right in the hall. The hall that leads to The Pony's room on the right, and Genius's room on the left, and the boys' bathroom in the middle. Where I hear all the footsteps at night. Beside my cabinet full of my grandma's dishes, and a set of red depression glass dishes that she insisted I take as well. Let the record show that Grandma had about 29 sets of dishes. So nobody went without.

Let the record show that Thevictorian household needs another piano like Hick needs another hole in his head. We already have the piano that was my grandma's. It came from Little Val's long-ago elementary school auditorium, before the building was razed to make a fabulous blacktop-covered-with-pea-gravel playground for Little Val and her cohorts. Not many lawsuits back then, my friends. Children were ripe for the maiming. Wore their battle scars proudly.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The piano that caused a bit of a rift with my sister the ex-mayor's wife, because they wanted to donate it to the church in Mom's name. Sorry. Mom was not the kind to be donating a piano to the church. Sis even said, pointedly, as if I was a heathen found in the woods at the age of--didn't really think I'd reveal that, now did you--having been raised by wolves, "You know, when somebody dies, it is customary for the family to donate something to the church in their name." Huh. Why doesn't the church donate something to the family? You know, like a partial refund for all those offerings that didn't pay off with everlasting life. Oops! Val's cynical side leaked out there for a minute.

Now where was I headed? Oh, yeah. That piano causing me misery. Where that piano sits used to sit an end table. It wasn't near the end of anything. Just sat there between my rocking chair full of the boys' outgrown coats, and my cabinet full of Grandma's dishes. Every morning, I put my feet up on that table (one at a time, of course) to put on my socks. I could grab onto the cabinet if I became unbalanced. Now I have to put my feet on the piano bench. Same height, but different distance from the cabinet. Different balance if I grab the piano. Val hates change like Lou Grant hates spunk.

Friday morning, I was rushing to get ready, and a thread in my sock snagged on the edge of my right great toe. That's what you call it, officially, you know. The great toe. It's in all the anatomy texts. I rushed on, thinking it would rip itself loose. I didn't notice any pain. Val has quite a high pain threshold, according to those nurses when I had to be driven from one ER without beds to the hospital with beds when I had my gallbladder out. Because there were only two ambulances in the county, neither at my end, Hick drove me from one to the other. That meant I had the IV in my arm, but it wasn't hooked up to anything. Just plugged off for when I arrived after the 30-minute drive. Any other patient in such condition would have been crying for a refill on the machine filled with sweet, sweet morphine that you could push a dealybobby with your thumb every 15 minutes to get a hit. According to the nurses, who said it would take about 30 minutes to get the order for the sweet, sweet morphine pump.

Now what were we talking about? Oh, yeah. This morning my right great toe was sore. I saw that it was red at the inner corner, with a black spot in that crack between toenail and toe. "Oh. I must have ripped off a corner of my toenail with that thread. I don't want an infection. Better put some triple antibiotic ointment on there." I followed my instructions quite well. Then I got to thinking. "What if that's not dried blood, but a piece of the sock thread? I don't want that festering in my foot! I need to have somebody look at it." Because, you see, Val and her toes are not really on viewing terms lately.

I recruited Hick and The Pony as my personal caregivers. Hick knelt down and put his face near my foot on the end of the La-Z-Boy. He's a brave man. I could never get so close to anyone else's feet. Val hates feet like Lou Grant hates spunk. "Val. I can't see what's there. I need a magnifying glass."

"Oh! There's one in the kitchen, by that cup full of change. It's part of a glasses repair kit I brought home from my mom's. In a little clear plastic case, with screwdrivers."

Hick and The Pony went to the kitchen. A more inept search party was never formed. They could not find Hick's butt with a flashlight, a Garmin, and the help of hypothetical guest searcher Genius if their very lives depended on it. Of course I had to get up, hobble to the kitchen on my sore toe, and show them the magnifying glass sticking out of the cup full of change, resplendent in its clear plastic case, ensconced beside a red-plastic-handed mini screwdriver.

I told Hick to take a look and see if there were threads in my wound, or just dried blood. "I need to clean it out, Val. To see what's there."

"What do you need to clean out? That's CLEAR triple antibiotic ointment! You can see through it."

"Well, I want to get it cleaned up, but I know how you are when I try to help you." Let the record show that Hick has a knack for getting to the root of the pain. As in poking the place that will hurt the most. After retirement, he could get a job helping a dentist locate nerves. Like a hog that sniffs out truffles, like a witcher who shakes his stick at water. No need for a dentist to shoot cold air across teeth to find an exposed nerve.

Now where were we? Oh, yeah. "NO. I know how YOU are! You always find a way to make it hurt more. Unnecessarily."

"Let me get a Q-tip and clean it out."

"NO! I just took a shower, and then put triple antibiotic ointment on it! It's clean!"

"Just let me get a Q-tip. Pony! Go get me a Q-tip."

"Pony! Go out in the yard and get me a stick to bite on!"

"I'll get the Q-tip. But not the stick. It'll be okay, Mom."

I leaned back in the La-Z-Boy and threw my arm over my eyes. Hick pressed hard upon my great toe. I wanted to kick his head into the goat pen, after first bouncing it off The Little Barbershop of Horrors, then the Sword Shack. Let the record show that if a medical professional had done the same treatment, I would barely have felt it. But this was Hick. Also let the record show that both times I started to type "Q-tip" I first typed "toothpick." Because that's how it felt. Like he was jabbing a toothpick into my great toe.

"There! I got it! There was a black thread stuck in there. Now I'll put some triple antibiotic ointment on it and clean it up."

"NO! It's clean! I already put it on there. Look at it shine."

"Okay. But if you need my help, I'll fix it up for you."

I will say this about that for Hick. He's always game to play doctor.