Don’t look at it! Don’t touch it!

I fully admit to being squeamish. I carefully look away when I have a shot or a blood draw. When a splinter or a scraped knee needed dealing with, that was The Husband’s territory. When I had brain surgery six years ago (through my upper lip and up through my sinuses – such fun!) I went for three weeks afterwards without looking in the mirror. I absolutely did not want to see what my nose looked like with 6″ splints in or OR the horrendous bruises that (people told me) completely covered my nose and cheeks.

In the last few weeks my squeamishness has been put to the test. Following an injury TWO YEARS AGO to my left big toe, I’ve had some weird things going on recently with that toenail. I will spare you the repulsive details, dear reader, but suffice it to say that gushing fluids were involved. True to form, I covered the toenail with nail polish and tried to ignore it.

No dice. Today I finally gave in and went to a podiatrist. He confirmed my suspicions about the long-ago injury and explained what joyous things my toe has been doing lately. Then the digging, scraping, cutting, and jabbing began. I resolutely stared out the window until it was over, and I haven’t looked at my toe all day. It feels better, and that’s good enough. In fact, I don’t plan to look at it for some time. I’ll ask the Husband to peek every now and then (he’s a medical daredevil) to make sure it’s looking healthy. Maybe by next summer it will be normal enough for me to look at and put polish on again.

So as I was going through all this today, I remembered a picture book by one of my favorite children’s authors, Rosemary Wells (author of the Max and Ruby books). Max gets an owie, Ruby tries to help him, and all he’ll say is “Don’t look at it! Don’t touch it!”

I’m with you, Max.