I have shared my health journey dealing with cancer over the past three years, as well as passing along documentation of my challenges with a herniated disc, eventual back-iotomy, and the road of rehab recovery. But I now have one more medical mountain-climb to share. This one took me by surprise, but it turns out that my most recent entanglement with a side effect (one of the few I have had to overcome - besides a bout of temporary hair loss; which actually grew back in with a higher ratio of red hair to white hair than before the fallout (bonus) - is one of the more common if not unheralded results of chemotherapy treatments. Is the suspense killing you?
Well, the discomfort from this side effect was "killing" me - more pronounced, annoying and unbearable than any pain I have experienced thus far along my cancer campaign (and that includes hundreds of needle sticks, a couple of bone marrow biopsies, and even the associated temporary digestive-tract discomfort of a stem cell transplant). And for the longest time, in my ignorance, I never put toe and toe together to imagine that my malady could be in any way related to my initial and then ongoing chemo consumption. But there it was, staring me right in the foot - are you ready for this: an ingrown toenail.
I'll spare you the gory details of how it is being remedied, but who would have thunk it that the top three causes of ingrown toenail affliction are: diabetes, alcohol consumption, and yes, chemotherapy. I guess in some respects it is poetic justice that through it all (it being this cancer voyage), I have thus far avoided the major and classic adverse reactions to the various poisons that have been introduced into my body (for the sake of my own recovery, mind you). Leave it to me to avoid the obvious detrimental downsides in exchange for the scourge of a right foot, big toenail deciding to grow back into my hallux rather than it's normal process of staying outside where it belongs.
Kudos once again go out to my Onc, as he was the first one to identify the issue. When I mentioned to him that I was having some minor and manageable neuropathy, as well as an unbearable pain in my big toe, he immediately discontinued my current offending chemo (Kyprolis - ie: carfilzomib). This decision, by the way, garnered rave reviews from my podiatrist who explained that many Oncs would have made me "just deal" with the ingrown toenail issue and continued with the chemo.
I continue to be amazed by what I learn along the road and how so many parts of the body are interrelated - though I confess that I can not physiologically explain how the cancer bone is connected to the toenail bone. I share the sophisticated science of my chemo cocktail as well as the mundane monotony (and misery) of an ingrown toenail. I provide this perspective as a public service. Forewarned is forearmed. Or in this case it might be fair to say, "foretold is fore-toed." (Sorry - the mind-numbing agony of an ingrown toenail has yet to completely wear off).
