Not entirely stuck on Band-Aids but duct tape is a whole different dog.

Dang it, I can’t find anything today.  Okay there it is.

In addition to my inability to find a damn thing it as well has been another medically frustrating day.

My doctor (my physician’s assistant at the VA) told me that my latest MRI results were practically indistinguishable from the one taken 14 months ago. That is good, in a sense, except I now know only slightly more why my lower back enters seismic pain whenever I stand more than 10 minutes or walk 20 minutes. Reading a copy of my radiology report it appears I have disk degeneration from L4-S1, “mild” central canal stenosis at L-3-4 and disk “protrusions” at L-4-5 and S-1. I read a definition of a disk protrusion as being intermediate  between a bulging disk and one that is herniated.

There are other words in the report which I cannot make heads nor tails of when used in a sentence. Perhaps in those words lie the reason why the doctors say they can do nothing to fix my back. It isn’t that I want surgery but I would sure like something to make the act of walking and standing, two very important factors in my current wage earning as a part-time government data collector and loads of fun for other uses, less filled with agony. Since the doctors have said there was nothing they can do, surgically at least, I thought I’d see if the “pain experts” might have a magical cure. We can already rule out physical therapy. Tried that. If surgery isn’t an option, then, perhaps …. a Band-Aid or duct tape.

While waiting in my doctor/PA’s office this morning, I looked down at my right, big toe and remembered to ask the medical expert about it. For some months now, that big “little piggy” began to look kind of dark and funky. That kind of sets off alarm bells since I have diabetes. Imagine my surprise, and shock, when I looked down at the toe to show the doc and I noticed that the top of my toe looked as if someone had opened it up with a box cutter. There was a nice little “avulsion” there, not bleeding, but certainly reddish on either side of the tear and with each side looking as if they were about to play “Red Rover.”

“That’s not good,” my doc said, she being one for understatements.

She prescribed me some antibiotic cream and told me to keep it covered. She didn’t say what my split toe was all about and I am afraid I didn’t ask.

I bought some adhesive tape and “3-by-3s” at the H-E-B Pharmacy on Dowlen. This was after all the pharmacists and techs ignored me while I stood with back aching for some time. I finally went back and purchased the tape and bandage. I chose 3 X 3 bandages — 3″ x 3″ — because I figured I didn’t need a 4 x 4,  which seem to be (or at least used to be) the gold standard for gauze bandages. I was first introduced to the world of 4 x 4s in firefighting rookie school and later during my training and subsequent recertifications as an emergency medical technician. How many times did I hear the joke about the rookie EMT from Texas A & M who brought back an armload of timbers when his supervisor told him to “go get some 4 x 4s?” Too many, I am afraid

I can’t make a long story short without severe editing, so I will just note that when I came home and put the medicated goo on my big toe, the adhesive tape from H-E-B wouldn’t stick on the 3 X 3 for all the world. As somewhat like the wife of Earle Dickson, inventor of the Band-Aid, I always am cutting my fingers cooking plus doing all kinds of other weird stuff. Therefore, Band-Aids are a big item in my medicine cabinet. I had no “big uns” to completely cover my big toe, but I had some standard sized Band-Aid bandages.

The Band-Aid stayed on my toe for awhile, but now it’s waving in the wind like a pair of flesh-colored bikini undies in a 1970s college panty raid although the bandage is, needless to say, much less than sexy.

Until I am able to purchase some of those big, heavy duty, waterproof Band-Aids that I know will cover most of my toe even through a Southeast Texas “frog-strangler” (heavy rain), I think I will retrieve the duct tape from behind my truck seat and use it on the Band-Aid. By Goree, if duct tape doesn’t keep my bandage on, nothing on Earth will.

I could get testimonials for the “silver sticker,” but I don’t think I need it. Who doesn’t have a great duct tape story? Stuck on Band-Aids? (And who doesn’t know that Barry Manilow wrote that jingle before he was a “star?”}Yes, I’m stuck on some of them, but until I get the right BD for the job I’ll go with duct tape to seal the deal, thank  you! Don’t worry, my toe is hairless and will probably be skinless too.