Thursday, May 27, 2010

“I have a chicken eye on my foot”

Grant is wearing a band-aid on the bottom of his foot that has to be replaced twice a day. It's the weirdest-looking band-aid I've ever seen.



He said his tutor found something on his foot and thought it was probably a [something in Chinese that I don't understand].


Then Buddy took Grant to the doctor, who said it probably was [something I don't understand] and gave him the band-aids and said it would probably go away in a few days.

I asked Buddy for some details but he gave me the same story Grant had given me.

Normally I'm okay with not understanding all the Chinese words that my kids and husband throw into a conversation. But since this was a medical issue and I was so out of the loop, I did what any mom would do.


I broke down.


Today when I was changing Grant's band-aid for the fourth time because he keeps picking at it I said, I don't understand why your tutor was looking at the bottom of your foot! And I don't understand what he thinks he's found. And I don't understand why the doctor couldn't confirm it, or why he would give you medication for something that doesn't have a confirmed diagnosis!”


Ever calm, Grant said, “Look, I'll tell you. I have a chicken eye on my foot.”


Oh thank you, that clears EVERYTHING up for me! My son has a chicken eye on his foot. Beautiful.


{Let's insert a pause here for me to regain my composure.}


{And to try to that image out of my head. I mean seriously, a chicken eye? That is so gross! Yet I wonder if Chinese people are grossed out when they hear our vocabulary like "shingles" and "Adam's apple" and kidney stone".}


After a few minutes of reverse engineering on google.com/translate, I figured out what Grant has on his foot is a corn and the band-aids are salicylic acid. And salicylic acid is a common, benign treatment and the corn probably will go away in a couple of days.


I still don't know why his tutor was looking at his foot though.


10 comments:

Sin-Yaw Wang said...

ROFL. You made my day. I have never thought the translation of *chicken eye*. It is just that thing and we don't think English for that.

Have you thought of how weird it will be to tell Grant he had a corn (in Chinese) on his foot?

Melanie Gao said...

Touche, 'corn' is pretty gross too. :)

cherimarie said...

So funny! I'm glad you got to the bottom of it!

Melanie Gao said...

Literally, cherimarie. :)

Priscilla said...

OK, "Chicken Eye" is downright gross but how did they come up with "Corn"? LOL

My Chinese is getting worse and worse. I didn't know what is a "Chicken Eye" either. My Mum's helper had one like a decade ago and when she announced that she was coming for a visit with the helper this year, I thought we were doomed!

Anonymous said...

What do we called "chicken eye" in the correct way??

Melanie Gao said...

I think it's correctly called a "corn".

I'd be happy if we could just call it "gone." It's still there, I'm afraid.

MT604 said...

It has also been known as a "fish eye."I I have one at the moment, work on my feet for 11/12 hrs a day as a massage therapist& it's been progressing with pain& soreness for the last week! Started 3weeks ago,&after this last annoying week..I decided to do some research of the appearance& symptoms. Claus, calluses,& fish eye(s) all kept coming up, as well as the treatment of salicylic acid and/or Lamisil cream+ corn& callus pumice stones. I BETTER get rid of this thing because my wonderful boss doesn't offer medical insurance &I don't want an astronomical Dr. bill to remove this thing! Wish me luck.

MT604 said...

Clavis was the name I saw(not Claus). Darn touchphone!! Does that all the time to me!

marrythaigirlsingapore said...

Lol my wife just cut off a big one from my right butt, so painful but worth it, it was hurting my butt when I was sitting and now I feel so much better!