Getting Our Nail B(l)ack

Now quite some time back last year -checks photo dates- late September, we took a nap in our car. Interesting enough instead of napping in the driver's seat as we usually do, we somehow found ourself in the front passenger's seat with the seat all the way down and an iKea pillow propping our head.

After what may have been a quick half-hour's snooze, we groggily got the chair back in position, got out of the car, and with our right hand on the car to support us, proceeded to slam the door on our right index finger.

The wonderous thing about being drugged, or groggy, or intoxicated, or inebriated, is that for a fair number of things, they don't immediately register. Pain is one of them.

We could even look at our finger, with half the nail stuck behind the door, and think, "Damn, it's stuck," and proceed to tug at it in the hope that we didn't have to open the door to free it. That didn't work, so we opened the door and removed our digit where, now free from the compression, slowly began feeling warm.

By the time we got back to the office, pain has made its presence felt, and after some painful typing we knew we were reduced to typing with just our left hand. After an accidental bump and when the throbbing had stopped, we knew we needed padding.

And the bigger the buffer, all the better. After all, the gauze didn't cost a lot and wouldn't have mattered too much if it did at the time.

With that settled, we waited for the inevitable. Our sis not only voiced out what we already knew, which was that the nail will turn black and fall off, but she did add a distressing bit where the new-grown nail will not look smooth.

Wasn't long before the fingernail died, and we were slightly vexed that only half the nail turned black. Because we realized that this meant that the death and rebirth of our fingernail would not be akin to a phoenix being reborn from the ashes but rather as if someone came back to life only to find himself still trapped in the coffin and now needed to claw his way out.

Two months down the road and here you can see said methaphorical resurrected fellow getting the coffin lid loose, or where the dead half of our fingernail slowly detaching itself from the nail bed. The other half remained intact. At this point most everyone had already asked us why did we paint our nail black, and why only one?

Soon enough after that, as the nail was now free of the nailbed, the clotted blood was free to make known the smell to us, which prompted us to prepare a little bath of Dettol just for Mr Finger.

Much better once it was cleaned up.

Couple of weeks down the road, the loose jagged edge needed to be kept in check as it soon started snagging on things. Much neater, but now it had a more noticiable corner to snag things.

By the end of December, we'd cropped most of it off to make way for new growth. Here's where said metaphorical resurrected fellow has now managed to dig his way, and has a hand pushing through the surface.

By the second week of January, the old nail was almost clipped off leaving it clear for the new nail to grow.

And by February, said metaphorical resurrected person has now cleared through the ground, and has gone home to take a good long bath and is now all nice and clean. And the distressing bit about the nail not looking as pretty as it once was? Did not happen!