She grins with joy the whole time we are there, excited to pick out her colors. She choose golden (more of a neon yellow if you ask me), and hot pink. Two of her favorite colors right now.
I had them cut my cuticles, and paint my nails a soft pink. We left feeling a little pampered and grateful for the time we spent together doing something "girly". Fun right?
Well, little did I know, this innocent nail outing would turn into me on antibiotics for 10 days, and a COMPLETE LOSS OF MY FINGER NAIL!!
Yeah so probably a few days after our manicures, the cuticle on one of my fingers started getting a little red. Didn't think much of it. It got more and more red, so I looked online and tried some at home remedies such as soaking it in Epsom Salt, applying topical antibiotic cream, and maybe a few other things. Nothing was working. It was getting more sore and the redness was spreading up my finger.
I called the nail salon to ask them what the hell was going on with my nail and what I should do. At this point I knew what it was, but just wanted to see what they would say. The man on the phone didn't skip a beat in telling me "go to the doctor and then call me back and I will give you my insurance information".. I asked if this happens often and he said it sometimes does, but not often.
Mind you, this place did not appear dirty, or run down. It is a very busy nail salon in the middle of a upper class neighborhood. Im just saying, this place was probably one of the nicer ones out there and this can happen anywhere!
I told the man I was not looking to have them pay any medical bills or anything like that, but I wanted him to know it happened at his salon and he needed to have a more sanitary cleaning process in place. He assured me he would speak with all his employees about the importance of cleaning all instruments. I was satisfied with that knowing it was all I could do at the time. (although I did have some random thoughts of picketing his place of business, going in and passing out flyer's with a picture of my nail to all the customers getting theirs done, and other more anger driven responses~lol)
After that I put a call in to my Uncle Don, he's a podiatrist and I knew he would be able to call me in a script. He knew exactly what I was talking about. There is a medical name for it, and can happen for various reasons to finger and toe cuticles. Basically a cuticle infection...One way it can happen is from dirty instruments at a nail salon.
Moral of the story….
*Take you own instruments when you go get a manicure or pedicure. Or don't go at all and just do it yourself at home*
I am hoping it grows in normal, but if it doesn't I'm OK with it ..shit happens I guess. I'm just thankful the infection didn't go systemic and that my daughter didn't experience it.
