fungussed!

One day, i looked at my toenail and something clicked.
No, not my clippers.
When bodily changes happen gradually, as they often do, it can take a long time to consciously notice a change, and even longer to identify it. This awareness-deficit is partly natural, but perhaps aided by a denial response to any threat or weakness of the body. This denial is perhaps more cultural than biological - our lifelong need to commodify and "sell" ourselves may foster blinders when it comes to perceiving self-problems.
As soon as i felt the click, i realized that this had been building in my nail for weeks...heck, months.
I had toenail fungus.
Not just athlete's foot - toenail fungus. Prior to a few years ago, i'd never even had athlete's foot. Which is bad, but can be addressed quickly with a cheap tube of ointment. Once you've had it once (and i suspect hardly anyone gets it only once), if you're like me you react with a bit of outrage and extra vigilance. Anytime i feel any kind of noticeable foot itch, including on the bottom (where athlete's foot hardly ever gains a "toehold" - ha!), i slap on some of that dollar store ointment.
But now...toenail fungus?? Oh, the ignominy. I'd always had such lovely foot hygiene - after showering, i'd scrupulously toweled between the toes, and then waved my feet spread-toed in the air for good measure. But i suppose living in the frozen north, where temperatures or the demands of work had kept my feet encased in shoes more often than not, had done me in.
And now...toenail fungus.
An old person's disease!
Apparently not.
But, but...i'd never even yet had my toes sucked!
It didn't look like i was going to, any time soon.
You probably know what toenail fungus looks like, even if you think you don't. If you've ever seen old feet, you may have noticed yellowy toenails. Bingo - toenail fungus.
And there it was, on the fourth toe of my right foot, a yellowing nail. It was also a bit thicker than normal, and starting to curl in an irregular way. I tried to figure out how this could have happened. In my previous home, which i had left a couple months before, the drain on the shower had been verrrry slow, so that by the time you were done washing, the water was often up to your ankles. My housemates had all been younger than me, but who knows?
Okay, nature boy, how do you handle this? After a few pointless applications, i realized those dollar store athlete's foot tubes clearly tell you they do nothing for toenail fungus. I was vaguely aware that doctors offered some sort of pricey remedy, but i hadn't had insurance in years and was disgusted with the craven, beyond-corrupt american medical establishment, so i researched holistic treatments.
And the journey began.
Vinegar, i read. Mentholated chest rub, i read. Gonna take a year or more, i read. Oy, i said.
I would soon be helped by another move, this time to the sub-tropics, where i knew my feet would be unshod more often than not. I took to sitting in the shade once a day for ten minutes, trying to keep that one toenail isolated in the sunlight. I did a vinegar dunk twice daily, and applied chest rub at night. I'd have this licked in record time.
Well...no.
Yes, i did get rid of the thickness and yellow discoloration in somewhat short order, and yes, i was so good with my hygiene that not once did i ever pass my condition on to anyone else, and also never even gave it to any of my other toes, which are literally touching the besieged fellow.
But lick it in record time? Nooooooo. It soon settled into a deep pink shade, darker than the surrounding nails. I also tried applications of tea tree oil, at the urging of a granola friend. But a month or two later, the treatment disruptions began, as i began getting an infected toe - watery bubbles that formed on the sides and bottom of the toe. I surmised that it was due to the chemical cocktail i was using. I waited a couple weeks for the infection to clear, and started isolating the treatments one at a time. I started with nothing but vinegar, but after a week or two the infection returned. I also tried some clotrimazole betamethasone diproplonate cream a friend gave me (don't judge me too harshly - when months become years you tend to be more willing to grasp at straws). But from that point on, no matter which treatment i tried in isolation, the infection returned. This all took the better part of two years...with that slightly reddish hue always taunting me.
Finally, i threw all the chemicals away. It was just the two of us. Mano-a-fourthtoe.
I took inspiration from a housemate who had the nervous habit of digging under her fingernails, worrying them away so that there was only a half-sized remnant.
My toenail needed to go.
Once the skin underneath was exposed to the sun (and maybe then a little vinegar too), this war would be won.
But how to proceed? For expediency's sake, i considered a full-on assault - smash, rip, or cut the nail away.
My disinclination to pain and blood finally turned me to the "irene plan"...dig under a little each day, and worry that nail away.
Progress was made. Around the time the nail reached half-size, i noticed a different product at the drugstore - an anti-fungal liquid with 25% undecylenic acid. Had i read the small print completely, and noticed that it wasn't meant for toenail fungus, just the stuff that can surround a nail, i probably wouldn't have bought it, even at the relatively cheap price (all this time, i knew that an expensive treatment was available - but i stuck to my anti-american-health-system principles). Had i just put the liquid on my naked, unworried, full-size fungused toenail, it probably would have done nothing.
But...i stand here today with a perfectly clear toe. Coloration normal. I think it was the combination of the acid plus the worrying. With half the nail gone, enough of the flesh underneath could be reached.
And it only took...three years.
I still worry it a little sometimes, and slap on another dose of the acid. Paranoia runs deep.
I sometimes wonder whether any of the stories about people getting rid of the fungus with nothing but vinegar or Vick's and time are true. They might be. I think individual body chemistries and immunological responses are so singular, anything's possible.
Anyway, i'm ready for that toe-sucking now, thank you.
Don't everybody kneel at once.