Worry Warts

My oldest daughter has an unsightly problem. She would kill me if she knew I was telling you about it. Lucky for me she doesn’t know about my blog yet. E has developed a nasty little wart problem. It started with one bumpy one on her pointer finger, but now the warts have spread to her feet. She has two on one toe, and the dreaded plantar’s wart, which sounds more involved than it is. A plantar’s wart is one on the bottom of your foot, that grows up into your skin as opposed to festering on the surface. Wow, when I describe it, maybe it is that involved. Anyway, four warts. I told her it looks like she needs to stop picking at her feet, but that didn’t make her laugh. It made her cry.

We tried unsuccessfully to treat the little fuckers at home. I went out and bought some Compound W, which may or may not be from the makers of Preparation H, and a fresh box of Disney Princess Band-aids. We painted that foul smelling stuff on her foot and fingertip for three weeks. We occasionally covered her finger with Jasmine or Belle, and we attempted to not gag or say “ewww!” while inspecting her digits. We encouraged hand washing. I even gave her a pumice stone from one of my many pampering gift baskets that I keep receiving and never use, so she can scrub her protrusions raw. But her warts just kept getting bigger and angrier looking. So I broke down and took her to the doctor.

Taking E to the doctor is just like taking your cat to the vet, only without the pet carrier. First she has to fret about the possibility of shots. Or a finger stick, when they test for anemia, which they do maybe once every two years for the average child. I point that out to her every time we do go to the doctor’s, but it doesn’t matter. She always resorts to an irrational fear of needles. Anyway, we had an appointment after school. She probably freaked out about it all day, and from the minute we got in the car, she started in with the hyperventilating and panic. By the time we had signed in and sat in the waiting room, she was so worked up she couldn’t even sit down, choosing instead to stand stiffly next to my chair while S, her younger sister, crawled around on the filthy floor, touching all the germ covered baby toys while I snapped at her the whole time, “Stop touching that!”

We went back to the exam room and waited. Waiting for the pediatrician isn’t as bad as waiting for, say the gynecologist. Of course, that might be because it is not my exam, and I am not wearing a paper vest. But still, the wait was short, and we entertained ourselves in our usual odd fashion, mainly by drawing germs and bacteria all over the paper table liner with whatever pens we could find in the room. If my kids could figure out a way to take tongue depressors and glue them together with hand sanitizer, we could actually make 3-D germ sculptures, but we had to make do with what we had. Dr. L, our usual doctor, came in not too longer after and asked how we were that day, to which E replied,” Warty!” No sense in wasting his time, we jumped right into why we were there. He laughed and asked for a rundown of what we have been doing. I explained about the Compound W, the Band-Aids, and the lack of success. I wasn’t looking forward to Dr. L freezing off E’s warts, but at least it is quick, if not pain free. So imagine my surprise when he chose not to freeze them off. Instead, he recommended duct tape with an over the counter patch called Mediplast for her plantar warts, and some lotion called Aldara for the other three. He thought the duct tape/Mediplast combo would be too difficult to administer on her finger and toe, so the lotion was for that. He seemed to think the duct tape would work just as well as the lotion, thanks to the New England Journal of Medicine’s study of 101 medicinal uses of duct tape. I assumed it was not sponsored by any of the major pharmaceutical companies.

The next day, when I got the prescription filled, I was absolutely shocked when I picked it up. $150 for our share. Our insurance company paid $191 for its share. For a lotion we were to use three times a week. Which meant that for a month’s worth, roughly twelve little packets, we feasibly could have paid $340. No wonder doctors are trying to figure out remedies out of household products for things like warts. Who wants to pay the equivalent of a car payment to fix what could be knocked off with a paring knife, a slammed door, or a little WD-40? I don’t know what that crap Aldara is made of, but I am beginning to think it must be unicorn sperm. How else can they justify that wallet rape?

With that price, you would think it would work, and work well. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that. Before we could even try it, the wart on E’s finger decided to split open like a hot Parker House roll. It looks like it has a tiny little mouth in it, and I am pretty sure it is screaming. We can’t treat that one because it is too irritated. But at the price of the lotion, we can’t treat the other ones either, since we can’t afford to waste it. So we are still no closer to fixing the wart problem than when we began. I understand eventually these things clear up on their own, if the unicorn cum and duct tape remedies don’t do their job. Remind me again why medicine is a science and not an art.