Bumps in the Road

"It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, 

broken toes, and mistakes...It's life." ~Mary J. Blige

Illness in the Peace Corps is very common, and frankly, I expected to get sick like most volunteers do with Giardia, amoebas, or even malaria. When my mom calls me or emails me she doesn’t ask “How are you feeling” or “Have you been sick?” She asks me “How are your toes?” It seems that my feet, specifically my toes, have not been agreeing with my life in Togo.

The first sign of problems came last September, when my feet were getting cut up by my running shoes every day. Sore toes, bleeding heels, so I decided to switch to different shoes, but this just resulted in both big toenails turning purple and blue. About one month later one of them fell off, and a few months after that I lost the other one. In December the right toe became infected, which led to a course of antibiotics. In March that same toe became infected again. Then just a few weeks ago, a third infection! This time even after antibiotics, it was still red and sore.... diagnosis was that my brand new toenail was growing back ingrown. This brings me to today, one of my WORST visits to a doctor.

Don't get me wrong, Peace Corps Medical Officers are amazing at what they do. They take care of the volunteers so well. This is the best medical care I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, how many people have a doctor who knows all about their medical history and who is available 24/7, only a phone call away, whenever you need to talk to them? Today I left super early in the morning to travel down to Lome to get the ingrown section of my new toenail removed. I know a few family members who’ve had this done, so I thought it would be no big deal. Last summer I had to have my whole foot numbed to remove about 30 sea urchin spines from the bottom (my souvenir from traveling in Turkey). Compared to that, I thought this would be easy.

The moment the shot of anesthesia hit my blood stream, I was ready to hurl. Thankfully, I didn’t have any breakfast today, because I just felt awful, closed my eyes and kept thinking “Emily, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.” Then my ears started ringing and I couldn’t hear anything, so I thought I was going to pass out. They waved something in front of my nose, which made the nausea stop. The toe is pretty hard to inject, so about halfway through the syringe just exploded and the anesthetic flew everywhere. While the doctor had to go get another one, the needle end was stuck in my toe, just chillin there. As the doctor was cutting down my toenail to the root she said “This is too easy, the whole nail is dead.” So she decided to remove the entire toenail. Unfortunately, since the anesthesia was administered on the left, ingrown side of the nail, I was able to feel the pain of the right side getting pulled out.

Now here I am, 10 months in Togo, back to square one, with no toenail again. I have to remind myself to look on the bright side. With the wide array of possible diseases and illnesses in Africa, I will be LUCKY if my toenails are my only problem, and overall, I’m very grateful to have the PCMOs. They are like our little guardian angels, guiding us through all the bumps in the road, on this incredible life adventure.