Goodbye Toenail, Hello Crazy Mom

A while ago Chili ripped out one of her back toenails. Yep, she ripped it clean off. She decided that she didn’t like the side of the gate she was standing on, so she jumped over it. On the way over, she caught her toenail and well, let’s just say it didn’t make it all the way over the fence with the rest of her. It stayed behind.

It must’ve hurt. I mean, she ripped her toenail out so it had to hurt. Chili being Chili just landed, limped around for a minute, and then ‘walked it off’. Nobody knew exactly what she had done at the time. She’s always doing stuff like that and since she didn’t really seem hurt, then no worries, right. That night she was lying on her bed and I could see a red glow coming from her back toe. I was staring at it wondering what the hell I was looking at. She shifted and it stopped glowing. I figured I was imagining things, as usual. A little while later, I saw the glow again. That’s it, this calls for an inspection.

I got the flashlight so I could get a good look. Chili was not impressed. She shot me a dirty look and tried to get away. I could see that she did something to her toe, and I suspected she ripped out her toenail but I couldn’t be sure. So I did what any other normal person would do. I grabbed the camera, took a few shots, and loaded them on the computer.

Ummm, let me tell you right now. There are some things that are not meant to be photographed and viewed at a large size on a computer screen. They really aren’t.

I’m quite certain that even the most innocent scratch will look sinister when it’s blown up. I don’t know what I was thinking. All I managed to do was scare the hell out of myself. It was like a car wreck. I wanted to look away, but I just couldn’t. I was looking from the picture to Chili and back. She knew something was up and took off to the other room where she felt she would be safe from my crazy.

Yeah, run Chili, run, mom is going into crazy mode.

I figured that since a toe is on the ground a lot, this was one of those injuries that was ‘vet worthy’. Besides, that picture looked pretty scary and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Stupid picture.

After 3 vet visits, a few weeks of fighting with Chili to keep the wrapping on her foot, and ridiculously chasing her around trying to spray her toe with Vetricyn, I eventually gave up and decided I wasn’t giving the vet any more money and I was leaving Chili alone.

Her toenail would eventually grow back without any issue and a crisis wasn’t even a crisis. Or, did I avert the crisis by doing exactly the right thing and that’s exactly why she healed so well. Hmmm, there’s something to be said for being a little crazy.

Here’s to every crazy animal mom who’s just working to do the best they can.