“You’re kidding me…”
“It will be a good experience.”
“That’s literally bumfuck nowhere.” I complained. “The hell am I supposed to do, stich up some white-trash inbred good ol’ boy with a straight line for a family tree who got shot by his half-brother cousin over an argument about who would get to fuck their sister-wife?”
“Zach… Jesus… Look…” Anna the medical director said, face-palming while Chase openly laughed in the background. “I don’t make these decisions.”
“Who the hell does?” I grunted. “Seriously, the loan forgiveness plan was clear. I would get my loans taken care of if I worked in a high-need, emergency medicine environment. Where we are now is quite clearly a high-need environment and unlike the other whiners, I actually like being here.”
“Zach…” Anna began again.
“No, this is stupid.” I cut her off. “I’m by far the best PA here, no one has as many saves as me. I’m super self-sufficient, my charts are always done on time, and I have excellent report with the patients.”
“That’s why we’re sending you out there.” Anna said.
“So I get punished for being good at what I do?” I continued complaining. I’ll admit I was getting a bit whinny, but come on, this was stupid.
“This isn’t really up for discussion man, I’m sorry.” Chase stated with finality and with genuine empathy.
“Unfortunately this is how these things go. You’ve seen a lot of the more unique cases, so they want you out where it’s even harder to get providers.”
Now, when Chase said “more unique cases”, he was right. I’ve seen and treated quite a few. There was the guy that was involved in a motorcycle crash. He came in with his entire pelvic cavity torn to shit, bleeding all over the place. I had my hand almost elbow deep in this dude’s pelvis, clamping down on his femoral vein. That guy didn’t make it. I was gripping his femoral vein and could feel his femoral artery pulsing right above my hand. As the doc was scrubbing in, I felt it stop. I literally felt a man die. It was surreal. Motorcycle injuries are fucked up, people. Take extra care when riding on one of those deathtraps. There’s a reason some of us in EMS call them “donor cycles”.
Then there was one particularly freaky case that was probably the main catalyst for the decision to move me to Bumfuck, Nowhere. Probably due to how I reacted to it.
It was a trauma case that came in in the middle of winter. It was the overnight shift at the hospital, a major surgery center for the region. I was in the employee lounge hanging out with Deena, a freckled nurse that I’m… uh… “friends” with. She and I were part of an emergency surgery team that had seen some crazy shit and kept it together. Our team had the highest positive patient outcomes. That basically means patients not fucking dying in hospital admin speak. In an unusual move, the hospital administration kept us together.
Deena was a tattooed, red-headed, former paramedic with shorter, punk-like hair and had a strong-but-lithe build. Think of the badass bitch stereotype of a female paramedic, and you’ll probably not be that far off.
We had been discussing the finer points of how shitty the Rise of Skywalker was when the call came over the intercoms.
“Adult trauma alpha, ETA now, O.R. 07.” The voice said in a rhythmic, practiced staccato. “Adult trauma alpha, ETA now, O.R. 07. Adult trauma alpha, ETA now, O.R. 07.”
For those of you who don’t know, it’s usually standard practice to repeat major hospital announcements three time. Something having to do with human memory and comprehension.
“Let’s roll.” She said plainly, downing the rest of her coffee and crumpling up the cup. She tossed it behind her. It sailed ungracefully across the room, missing the trash can by several feet.
One of the other hospital employees had just come into the breakroom and watched the cup bounce across the floor. He frowned at it, and before Deena could do something, grabbed a paper towel as a hand barrier and tossed it into the trash can.
“Thanks.” Deena said.
“Don’t play basketball.” I told her as I stood up and walked over to the door that led towards the O.R. hallway.
“Like you’re tall enough to be a judge of that.” She laughed, slapping my shoulder as she walked through the door I was holding open for her.
We jogged to the scrub sinks outside of the assigned operating room and immediately began the process of washing our hands. It’s a longer process than you may think. It’s a two-part process as well. You wash your hands first, then your arms, in that order. The washing involves scrubbing under your fingernails and up to the elbows. One thing to specifically watch for is the thumb, it’s the least washed part of the hand.
Deena and I completed our processes and both made our way into the room. The other two members of our team were already there: Donny the surgical tech and Dr. Scott the trauma surgeon. A nurse and an anesthesia tech that weren’t part of our team but we worked with often were there as well.
“Hey all.” I said as the surgical tech, Donny, opened up a sterile surgical gown for me. I put my arms through the sleeves and let him tie it around my back.
“Zach, Deena.” Dr. Daniel Scott acknowledged us. He was a taller man in the late prime of his life with salt-and-pepper hair, a slightly big nose, and brown eyes that always seemed to crinkle with smiles. He was a damn good surgeon and was one of the best doctors to learn from. I will always admire the man greatly.
“What do we got?” Deena asked as Sofia, the other nurse, helped her into her reinforced hospital gown.
“You remember that guy that went missing on his “camping” trip?” Sofia asked.
“That redneck frequent flier we have to restrain every damn time?” I cocked an eyebrow, slipping my arms into the sterile gloves that Donny had opened up for me.
“Yeah, they found him.” Sofia answered.
“So… what’s his deal?” Deena wondered.
“Third-degree burns, apparently.” Sofia answered darkly. “With a few possible fourth-degree.”
“Jesus.” I muttered. “Of course this would happen when we have a skeleton crew at the hospital. We got enough skin grafts?”
“Is the Alloderm rep here?” Dr. Scott asked. “We’re probably gonna go through quite a bit of tissue.”
“No, but the freezer’s fully stocked.” Deena answered, looking at the sterile table at the surgical supplies. “Supply chain made sure to order enough in advance.”
“We’ll need to reorder more for sure.” I added. “Do the supply runners already know the deal?”
“They’ve been informed,” Sofia acknowledged.
“We’ve got the doctor on call on the way as well.” Deena stated, briefly glancing at a message that had popped up on her smartwatch.
“Patient coming in!” A new voice said loudly. The doors to the O.R. opened and a short, plump nurse came in at the head of a gurney, an ED tech pushing it into the room. The man lying on the cart was what we call “trauma naked”. His clothes had been completely cut away, and he a sheet and blankets over him with some skin visible on the parts of the body that hadn’t been fully covered. He looked to be in his early forties, though the completely bald head made guessing his age a challenge. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was questioning anything. Sure enough, Deena and Sofia seemed to be pondering the same thing I was.
As I mulled over my thoughts, I turned my attention to the anesthesia tech, Mandy. She glanced from the anesthesia mask in her hand, to the patient’s file on her printout, to the patient himself as the ED tech, Sofia, Deena, and the newly arrived nurse positioned themselves alongside the gurney. They performed the standard drag with the assistance of a slide to get the guy onto the surgical table.
Dr. Scott popped his neck and walked up to the gurney and carefully removed the sheet, revealing the man’s body. My suspicions were instantly confirmed, but I waited for someone else to say it. There was a good twenty seconds of silence before Donny spoke up.
“So… where are the burns…?”
This guy showed absolutely no signs of burns… Of any kind… In fact, outside of a few standard cuts and scars, the guy’s body seemed to be perfectly fine. All of the O.R. staff looked at each other confused. Third and fourth degree burns are… Well, I don’t suggest looking them up. Third degree burns go through both the epidermis (outer layer of skin) and dermis (layer below the epidermis) all the way down to the fat layer. Fourth degree burns are even uglier, and can affect bones and muscles. They’re nasty as hell, to put it VERY mildly. But this guy seemed perfectly fine, save for the… oh god dammit… the white pride celtic cross logo tattooed on his left pectoral.
“Is this the right guy?” I asked as I stepped next to Dr. Scott.
“Can we get confirmation please?” Dr. Scott asked Sofia, who seemed just as confused as we were.
She read off the info on the man’s file, and it all seemed accurate.
“Wait, you see that?” Dr. Scott pointed at the man’s thigh right above his knee, where the skin seemed to have a slight red hue.
“Yeah,” I said, turning my head as I inspected the spot, feeling it slightly with my hands. It seemed a lot more tender than it should be, the flesh seeming to move strangely. It looked almost like a baby leg. You know how they have those chubby, cute legs? Yeah, it’s not so cute when it’s on a grown-ass, white-nationalist.
“What do you think it is?” Dr. Scott asked.
“Could be subcutaneous hematoma…” I suggested. “But then again, the color’s all off, those are blue or purple usually…”
“I was going to say angioedema, but the swelling never looks like that…” Dr. Scott suggested. “Neither answer the main question…”
“Where are the burns?” Deena asked, leaning over the bed slightly.
“Exactly.” Dr. Scott said. “Move your hands please, Zach.”
I did so as the doctor felt the wound. “This feels all wrong…” He muttered. “This makes no sense… “#15 scalpel, please.” Dr. Scott said.
The surgical tech methodically handed the scalpel to the doctor before his brain caught up to him. “Wait, doc… What are you…?”
Dr. Scott didn’t wait. I moved my hands quickly to keep the leg steady as the doctor put the blade to the skin and ran it in a vertical, two inch motion. I had learned to trust Dr. Scott, even if I too had my doubts about what he was about to do.
Almost immediately, the smell of burnt flesh overtook the entire operating room as a cloud of burnt ash that was once flesh burst out into the air, similar to the ash and soot that flies off of a campfire when someone tosses a new log onto it. From that small cut, charred flesh spilled out. As in, literally spilled and piled out. Think of when a shrimp cooks and the flesh pops through the shell, or when you boil a sausage and it rips and sort of inflates out of the cut, and you’ll have a good approximation of how this nasty, blackened flesh spilled out of this tiny wound and all over the man’s leg, the gurney, and my gloved hands.
The smell had this strong, rotten, metallic, almost coppery weight to it, and I had to fight the urge to gag. I’d seen my fair share of nasty stuff as an EMT, so I managed to keep my food down. Donny however turned and promptly vomited off to the side and all over the floor.
“Well great, this whole fucking OR now needs to be sterilized now.” I thought.
That concern was immediately waylaid as the patient’s heart-rate suddenly spiked on the monitor. His eyes flew open and he sat up, completely breaking through the restraints he had been strapped to. His arms flew out, his hands wrapping around Mandy the anesthesia tech’s neck and squeezing hard.
“IT’S INSIDE ME!” He bellowed. “IT’S INSIIIIIDE MEEEEEEEE!”
“What the fuck!?!” Deena exclaimed.
“Whoa, let go!” I yelled as I immediately leaned forward and grabbed the man’s wrists. I pulled hard, trying to pry his hands off of the anesthesia tech’s throat. Almost immediately, I felt a sensation like the crispy skin of a chicken strip sloughing off of the white meat as my grip slipped away, and I found myself holding two thick handfuls of skin, perfectly clean on one side, and charred and bloody on the other. Below the man’s freakishly normal looking epidermis, his arms were burned down to blackened bone. Several chunks of burned yet still wet flesh plopped to the O.R. floor with a series of nasty, moist impacts reminiscent of a wet mopping hitting a tile floor. I could see the patient’s radius and ulna, charred black, clear as day.
As I stood there, fighting down the bile that was coming up in my throat, I can honestly say that was the first time at that job that I’ve ever frozen in place. I knew I’d be experiencing some weird shit, and I already had, but this was beyond anything I’d ever expected. Nothing in P.A. school, shadowing, or my past as an EMT could have prepared me for this.
Deena was the next one to try to attempt a rescue. She pushed her way up to me and busied herself with the fingers on the man’s right hand instead of his wrist, all the while staring in panic at the tech’s face, which was quickly turning purple. Dr. Scott was attempting the same thing on the man’s left hand. They somehow managed to loosen his grip, and the tech stumbled backwards, knocking over an instrument tray and scattering the tools across the O.R. floor with a series of clatters. Her back hit the wall as she gasped for air… Nasty, rotted flesh smelling air… She too turned and immediately hurled all over the wall she had fallen against.
“INSIDE MEEEEEeeeeeee……!” The man gave one last, rasping scream that died in his throat before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell back hard against the gurney, his vitals flatlining.
We all stood around, staring in utter and complete shock at what had just happened, with that annoying ass beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ringing out as the only sound besides the dry heaving of the two techs.
“What… in the holy…” I muttered.
“Uh… Zach…”
I looked over at Deena, whose eyes were focused on my hands. I looked down and realized that through all of this, I was still holding on to the man’s… wrist skin. I just stared at the weirdly burned flesh as the beeping droned on.
“I… I don’t…” Dr. Scott muttered quietly, had his hand over his heart, staining the surgical gown with the blackish-red residue from the charred flesh. I could barely hear him over the sound of the beeping.
It went on for another excruciating few seconds before Deena hit the button to mute the machine. Several more seconds of silence followed as we all exchanged glances before, finally, the wide-eyed nurse at the computer found her voice.
“So… Um…” She awkwardly said. “Time of death…?”
Both Mandy and the ER tech quit after that incident and Sofia took a long leave of absence. Donny bounced back pretty quickly after taking a day off. Deena, Dr. Scott, and I seemed to be the least fazed by the incident. I’d been an EMT, Deena had been a paramedic, and Dr. Scott had volunteered in warzones across the world with various NGOs, so we managed to shake off freakier shit relatively easily. The patient obviously died. Turns out he wasn’t originally even supposed to come to us. Some freak snowstorm forced the emergency chopper to re-route to our hospital. I found this weird, as that hospital was by far the best hospital in our region of the United States, and that there was no snowstorm reported in the news… I never actually found out where the chopper was originally headed, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t curious. I dug into the transfer paperwork and saw that the original destination was listed as “Restricted B”. Not helpful at all.
So again, when Chase said “unique cases”, those are the kind he meant. What I DON’T think he meant was me having to slapfight a small pair of glowing-blue, weirdly human-like hands sticking out of a dude’s shoulder in order to surgically remove the bulbous-eyed frog that they belonged to. At least it looked like a frog. Weird anatomy of the frog aside, I have no idea how it got in there. There was no sign at all of any entrance wound on the guy’s body, anywhere. The only clue I had to go on as far as the cause was something the guy said. He mentioned that his diet was “normal” (in the deep south, this means overly fatty and diabetes-inducing), save for the fact that he drank some homemade mead made with a glowing blue sap he “pur-curred” off a fallen tree while he was wandering in the woods high on meth “ ’bout’ta week er two b’fore.” That’s a story for another day.
So in case you haven’t figured out by now, I’m a physician assistant, or physician associate depending on the state. The best way to describe the role is a “Doctor-light”. P.A.s can do a lot of the things doctors can do like see patients, order and interpret labwork and scans, prescribe medications, and much more. They’re restricted on more complicated procedures like complex surgeries, though they can and often do work as the first assist, taking part in suturing, IV placement, and catheterization. They also can perform more basic surgical procedures like draining abscesses, doing biopsies, and stuff like that. Basically, on the surgical end, P.A.s can do minor invasive procedures. There’s some contractual stuff and legalese that allows some P.A.s to do specific, more complex procedures in certain states and counties, but I won’t bore you all with that here. Basically, a P.A. can do a lot of what a doctor can do, but there has to be a supervising physician present in the practice or hospital as well. It’s a fun and relatively autonomous role.
While P.A.s make a good salary, P.A. school here in ‘Murica is still super expensive. Some P.A.s jump on loan forgiveness/repayment programs that involve being a provider in high-need areas or medical shortage areas, especially rural ones. That’s how, after 1 year in an extremely busy but criminally understaffed urban hospital I ended up being moved to Bumfuck, Nowhere in a region of the United States that can charitably be described as “country”. I had heard rumors that there had been a few fresh P.A.s and even M.D.s and D.O.s that has cycled through this town but never lasted more than a few weeks. Most ended up quitting the forgiveness program, though one or two just kind of dropped off the map, never to be seen again. I think the program thought I’d be made of stronger stuff due to my background. Before going to PA school, I was an EMT for a few years in a very large, very violent area of one of the biggest cities in the United States. I’ll keep it as vague as that in order to keep some semblance of my anonymity intact.
I’m guessing it was due to my past EMT experience and my very successful first year as a PA in that same city, that I was transferred to Hickville, to the all-in-one “Health Location.” Yes, health “location”… To keep it short, it was a sort of all-in-one health clinic… or Location I suppose… that was in a surprisingly decent-sized and clean building for the town it served. It had its own little departments for separate issues, including an emergency department, primary care, urgent care, ENT clinic, pharmacy, and a few others. I honestly don’t think that is allowed, legally speaking, but I’m no lawyer. I follow all the laws I was told to follow in PA school as far as patient treatment, so whoever runs this place, that’s on them. I’m getting my loans taken care of and the federal government is vaguely aware of this placement, so what the hell do I care?
I’ll start with the first case that made me realize that these cases were different. The supervising physician was in the primary care clinic dealing with one of our regulars, Charles Stubblebeard, a chronic appendicitis patient who was being seen in preparation for his seventh appendectomy. His appendix tended to reappear and burst every few months.
I, meanwhile was working the dayshift in the urgent care clinic that day. A new patient came in wanting to get some stiches removed. That’s the only thing I managed to overhear initially before one of the medical assistants, Kelsey, whisked him away to one of the exam rooms to do his vitals and intake. She came out a few minutes later. I met her at the door outside the patient’s room as she handed me his clipboard.
“Milton Brown, 39 year old new patient with a history of diabetes.” She immediately began. “Got a wound from a four-wheeler accident about 4 weeks ago. Had a family member stich up the wound. Wants to get it checked out and possibly get the stiches removed.”
“Symptoms?” I asked.
“Mainly itching and redness at the site, he said. No fever or pain, though.”
“Huh.” I muttered. “Alright, thanks.”
“The way he got it is… interesting.” She added as she walked back towards the front desk.
I furrowed my brow as I watched her go, wondering what she meant by that, then shrugged and swung open the door.
“Hello Milton!” I said with a smile.
“Hay there!” Milton exclaimed happily. “Yer the Pee Eyh?”
I was still adjusting my ears to southern speech at this point, so it took me an extra second or two to process what he said.
“Uh, yes. Yes sir I am. My name is Zach.” I said as I made my way over to the provider chair by the desk and sat down in it, turning the computer screen towards me and readjusting the keyboard.
“Well good ter meetcha!”
According to his chart, Milton was 39, but he looked significantly older. He had frown and wrinkle lines, as well as lightly tanned skin that was overly dry. His teeth were yellowed, likely due to smoking for over twenty years, as his chart designated. His dark brown hair was messily tucked under a camouflage-patterned trucker hat with the words “Big Cock Country” superimposed over a picture of a rooster on the front. He smiled at me as I typed a few notes into his encounter note. He was very amicable and friendly, a rather welcome change from most of the patients I had seen that day.
“Good to meet you too sir.” I nodded. “So tell me a bit about why you’re here. I got some of the story from Kelsey.”
“Well…” He muttered, scratching at the patchy beard on his chin. “’Bout four weeks ago I wuz fixin’ ta load up mah 4 wheeler into mah truck so I could take it to my buddy Brian’s house. And, well, I fell of th’ damn thang as I wuz loadin’ it.
For those of you not from the United States, four wheeler is a slang term for an all terrain vehicle, or ATV.
“I see. And you impacted on your back, correct?” I asked, typing what he was telling me into his note.
“Yessir,” he said. “I had this big ol’ gash on mah back, so I asked mah cousin Bubba to grab me sum sewin’ supplies and stich it right up!”
I paused from typing and barely managed to turn a laugh into a cough. “Mah cousin Bubba” was a little too much for me for some reason.
“Well, we didn’t have none in the house,” Milton continued, “so Bubba climbed up into the rafters of tha barn. There was a buncha shit left over there from that weirdo who was living there for a few days while I was camping down by the crick.” He meant creek, for those of you who don’t speak Southern. “So he grabbed some strong lookin’ thread, came down, and just stitched me right up!”
“Some… body was living in your… uh.” I stated.
“My property, yeah.” Milton nodded. “He was talkin’ to hisself in some funny language, wasn’t no ‘Muirican, so ah dunno what the hell he was saying. I hollered at him, asking what the sam hill he was doing. He just kinda looked at me from under some weird-lookin’ hood and moved further back. When I climbed up there, he was gone. Weirdo, man.”
“That sure is strange.” I agreed while silently wondering how drunk Milton must have been. If only I had known what was to come in the future. At the moment though, I was more focused on treating my patient. “Do you mind removing your shirt so I can take a look at the stitch?”
“Of course!” Milton smiled. He unbuttoned his bleach-stained flannel to reveal a white tank top underneath, which he rolled up to his armpits as he turned around.
I have to be honest, I was expecting it to look much worse than it actually did. There was a massive scar from a laceration across his back, reaching almost from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Its width was pretty consistent with the injury he described. The surprising part was the complete absence of any sign of infection. The wound was awkwardly stitched with a rough, black thread that looked like it was somehow made out of burlap. The stitching work was haphazard and ugly, but what else could I expect from a backwoods hick. I will admit though, it did seem to keep the wound closed either way, so I had to give some credit to whoever the hell “Bubba” was. I did immediately note one particularly strange thing: the erythema (redness) that surrounded the wound and stitching was far more widespread than it should have been. There were even some deep lines around, almost as if someone had taken thin metal wire and indented the surface of the skin all around the wound.
“So tell me a bit more specifically about the injury.” I said.
“Well, I was trying to load up the 4-wheeler like I said, ya know. So I built me a dirt mound.”
“A dirt mound?” I asked, pausing in the examination. Where was he going with this?
“Yep. Then, I lined up mah truck at what I thought would be the right angle and all that. I lined up mah 4-wheeler and gunned it. I figured I’d be able to jump in into the truck bed easy. Well, I kinda missed, the four wheeler only half hit the truck bed and bucked me off it.”
Again, I found myself repressing a laugh at the sheer idiocy of what redneck Evil Knievel had tried to do.
“Okay Milton. The wound seems to be fine, looks like there’s no risk of anything opening. Do you want me to remove these stiches for you?”
“Yes please!” Milton said brightly.
“Alright, go ahead and lean forward for me, put your hands on your legs.” I answered, pushing away to a nearby cart and opening one of the central drawers. I reached inside and grabbed a blue bag marked “Suture Removal Kit” which contained a set of tweezers, suture scissors, and alligator clips inside it. Most doctor’s offices have autoclaves, containers that use high pressure and high heat to sterilize reusable tools. Some are put in on metal trays, others are combined into little kits in specialized blue bags. It was one of these blue bagged kits that I grabbed.
“You want me to do anythin’?” Milton asked?
“No sir, just keep steady for me.” I stated as I opened the bag, grabbing the tweezers and the suture scissors. I positioned my hands over Milton’s stitches, ready to begin, when a knock came at the door. “Come in.” I stated.
“Hey Zach,” Kelsey, one of the medical assistants, leaned her head in, “For the previous patient, that was Augmentin you prescribed, not Amoxicillin, right?”
“Yep!” I answered, looking over at her. “Can you also make sure we have another set of straight mayos in this room after we get Milton taken care of and on his way.”
“Will do.” Kelsey answered as her head disappeared from sight and the door closed.
I turned back to Milton’s back, only to find that my hands were about 1 inch below the suture. That was weird, I had my hands in the perfect position prior to that. Oh well, maybe they shifted slightly as I was talking to Kelsey.
“Alright Milton, are you ready?” I asked.
“Yessir.” He answered.
“Alright, you may feel some discomfort and minor sharp pain, alright? Try your best to stay still for me.” I said. I readjusted my hands and slowly put the tweezers to the sutures, grabbing one of the ends. There was significantly more resistance than I expected. As I placed the suture scissors against the end of the suture, something totally unexpected happened. The suture straight-up slipped out of the grip of the tweezers with surprising strength and moved. I don’t mean they slipped out of the tweezers and slipped back into their place. They straight up moved. Like in the skin.
“Aw man, there’s that itchiness again.” Milton grunted. “You manage to get it?”
“Uh…” I had no words.
“Everythin’ alright?” Milton asked with concern.
“Uh… Yeah, yeah… No problem.” I shook my head, reaching for the suture again. This time, the threat didn’t wait. It bent like a tiny, thin snake around the tweezers, not even allowing me to get a grip on it. I just stared. “What the hell…?” I muttered out loud.
“Sumthin’ infected back there?” Milton asked.
“No, no… I’m just… Having trouble getting a grip on the thread…” I half-lied.
“Yeah, Bubba was sayin’ it was a tough thread ta use.” Milton agreed.
“Let me try to get it again. It’s pretty tough to get a hold of.” I told him. I shook my head, reaching out with the tweezers. Yet again, it seemed to move a few millimeters just out of the way. “Little bastard.” I muttered out loud in frustration. Instead of just a part of the thread, the entire thing began to shift and slide like a snake, eventually forming into 3 capital letters, spaces being formed by the thread going under the skin: NO U.
I stared, utterly dumbfounded. There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Milton spoke up.
“Man, that’s itchy.”
“Did… Did you say you found this thread in your… barn?” I asked Milton, watching as the threat formed the words UR MOM’S A BARN. I kept staring.
“Yeah, from that weirdo that was squattin’ there.” He answered. “Man, it’s tough to git, huh?”
“Yeah… It… It is…” I answered. “I think I’ll be able to grab it, though.”
In response, the thread formed the words LOL NO.
“I’ll show you, no.” I said out loud without thinking.
FUCK U the thread expressed.
“Wuzzat?” Milton asked.
“Uh… Never mind.” I answered, watching in increasing annoyance as the threat formed the phrase UR A CUNT.
What followed was a full minute of me playing a weird, medical version of Whack-A-Mole. I keep trying to grab an end of the thread with the tweezers while it dodged around as best it could, forming into various insults and invective directed at me. I finally managed to grab the end of it after the thread seemed to overextend itself, forming the words TRUMP 4 EVER. The tweezers closed in around the U in TRUMP and I wasted no time in putting significant power into the grip of the tweezers. Through a slow, methodical process, I managed to grab and snip away at the thread, pulling it out in pieces. When I had finally gotten the last part out and tossed it into the basin nearby.
I finished up with Milton soon after. His wound was well healed, so he really didn’t need a follow up appointment for anything. I still stressed that he should follow up with us if any issues with his wound came up, and he thanked me on the way out. I ended up closely examining the thread, but nothing else weird happened. It simply looked like nothing more than a crappy suture. I was really curious about it regardless, so I sent it off to a particular lab that I have some connections with, but nothing conclusive came from it.
Look guys, medicine is weird. There are new things discovered every damn day and medical books are constantly being rewritten. But there are some things, in my opinion, that we will never fully understand. Sometimes, it’s that person coming back from death’s door with no explanation. Other times it’s cancer that simply disappears, overnight. And yet other times, it’s a somehow internally burned white supremacist who tries to choke a random anesthesia tech and then dies, screaming about something inside him. Then there’s the weirdly Republican-loving stitches. All of that, however, is just scratching the surface of the range of weird shit I’ve seen in my work.