pbenvin
06-02-2004, 01:54 PM
Trauma
By Paul Benvin
As I write this, the germ – if that is in fact what it is – has almost ravaged my entire body. I am typing this, ever so slowly, with my one remaining finger. The others are steadily leaking a yellow puss of some kind and have swelled immensely, looking more like hot dogs that have been left on the grill for too long instead of actual human appendages. The rest of my body is almost unrecognizable, blown up so badly that even the slightest movement causes me extreme pain. My hair began to fall out almost immediately, leaving my scalp in large, greasy tufts. It too was covered in the same yellow slime. This is a very daunting task, to be sure.
How I caught it is no mystery – my dog passed it on to me – but where it came from is the real riddle. Was it a bug of some kind? Maybe it was a chemical. Or maybe little green men flew down from some fucking place – possibly Uranus, yuck yuck – and pumped my dog full of some extraterrestrial substance. Whatever it was, it has done a number on my pooch, and now it has got my balls in the proverbial wringer. How could this have happened, you ask? Well, I took Piper, my American Pit Bull Terrier, out to go to the bathroom this morning at about 4:00 a.m. She is – was – a very attractive animal. Her coat was a shiny red, the only contrasting color the white patch of fur over her left eye. And she loved to play. One of her favorite games was playing tug-of-war with the red, white, and blue rope I bought for her at the local pet shop. She had such good muscle tone that one time, when I took her in for her annual checkup, the vet actually called her an athlete.
It was freezing that morning – and when I say freezing I mean the type of cold that makes the snot in your nose freeze the second you take in air – so I opened the shed door and let her in. I figured I wasn’t going to need anything out of there until Spring at the earliest, so what harm would it do to let her take a piss in relative warmth. As I said before, it was really cold, so I went back inside and stood by the door. Usually, when she’s done with her business, she’ll come back and scratch or cry when she wants to be let in. But after fifteen minutes or so – I got preoccupied by a very in depth expose on the current Michael Jackson fiasco – she hadn’t scratched or cried. I figured it was nothing, so I walked back outside to the shed, where I found her cowering in the corner behind the riding lawnmower. She was whimpering, with her tail between her legs and her ears pulled back flush against her head. I called to her, and when she didn’t come to me I knew something had really spooked her good. She never disobeyed me that way. I got her when she was six weeks old and began to train her right away. She knew my voice and my commands, so I was definitely perplexed at her reluctance to come when I summoned for her. I tried again, making sure to keep my voice low and soothing, but still nothing. As I walked over to her, she shrunk against the wall, but I knew she recognized me when she feebly started wagging her tail. I couldn’t understand it. It all became clear though when I picked her up and noticed the golf ball sized lump just above her right eye.
By the time I walked the thirty feet or so to the house, her face had already begun to swell grotesquely. Both her eyes were completely shut, and her lips were now the size of pork chops. When I touched them, they were so filled with fluid I thought her face was going to explode. I immediately ran some cold water over her face to wash off any remaining poison – at the time I just thought it was some sort of bug bite – and placed a cold compress over the affected areas. I really felt bad for her. Being the compassionate person that I am, I walked over to the recliner and sat down, carefully placing her on my lap. She would nod off for a few minutes at a time, but then wake up and begin to whine. It was like she was trying to tell me it hurt, the poor thing.
I sat there in that recliner with her for more than an hour. Every fifteen minutes I would take the compress off her face to look at the swelling, and the last time I did this is when she bit me. She really sank her teeth into me, hard enough to draw a fair amount of blood, and anyone familiar with dogs knows that Pit Bulls have one hell of a chomp. I was shocked! Never in the two years I had Piper did she ever bite me, aside from the playful nips here and there. She wouldn’t even get upset when I tried to take her food away from her. I honestly don’t think she knew what she was doing. I set her down gently on the chair and went into the bathroom to clean the wound. I opened my oak medicine cabinet and retrieved the bottle of rubbing alcohol, pouring a generous amount onto a folded piece of paper towel. After running warm water over my hand for a few minutes, I gently cleaned the bite, wincing as the alcohol made contact with the bite marks. As I removed the towel, I noticed to my amazement that the punctures were already inflamed and sore. I wouldn’t realize it until later, but whatever she had was now coursing through my bloodstream.
I must have dumped the entire bottle of rubbing alcohol on my hand, trying to kill the germ of course. But it didn’t work. In less than an hour my entire arm ballooned hideously. If I had a sense of humor about the situation, I would say it looked like a sausage link, but as you might guess I’m not in a laughing mood right now. My dog – my loyal Piper – is dead. She succumbed rather quickly, but I know from her awful howling that it was not without pain. By the time the germ had completely taken her over, she looked like something out of a science fiction novel. Her head was the size of a football, and her once muscular and toned body was so disgustingly bloated, I thought for sure when I picked her up she was going to burst. In the end, I buried her in the yard. She was a really good dog, and if I knew I was going to live through this, I would most definitely miss her.
Now I sit here, plodding away on this computer with my one good finger, awaiting my certain demise. I always thought it would be nice to know when the end was coming – to be able to make preparations, you know – but now I can’t wait until this is all over. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror, although I’m not quite sure I would be able to now anyway. My eyes are starting to close up, not from fatigue but from the inflammation that has taken over every inch of me. I have an obscene headache, and if I didn’t know any better I would say that my skull is beginning to morph as well. For some reason The Elephant Man comes to mind. If I were a betting man I would put a very handsome wager on my friends and family not recognizing me right now. I’m sure they would be horrified. I now have a box of Kleenex next to me, because I’ve noticed a slimy emission has started to trickle from my ears as well. I’m sure if I checked, the same substance would be leaking from other holes in my body, but to tell you the truth I’m not sure I even want to know at this point. My typing finger is swelling again, and I can actually feel my arms getting bigger as I sit here. What does it feel like? Take the worst muscle ache you have ever had and multiply that by about a thousand. It’s about ten times worse than that. Aspirin quit working hours ago, so now I have to deal with it the best I can. What about a bullet, you ask? I have actually thought about that, but much to my chagrin I can’t even get up off the chair to reach my gun. My legs quit working about an hour ago, and even if I could stand up, I doubt my swollen ankles would be able to support the weight. I live in the middle of nowhere – my closest neighbor is nearly a mile away – and for years this was the family’s hunting and vacationing spot. My father, the one who bought the place years ago, never had a phone installed and I never thought to remedy the situation. That was one of the alluring qualities of this place – seclusion. After living in the city for most of my forty-five years, coming up here to get away from it all was a welcome change. But I’m starting to ramble. I wanted to get this down on paper for whoever finds me when it’s finally over. I’m sure my body will be tested and experiments will be conducted, but I really don’t mind. If the doctors want to hack my carcass into little bits – if it will help them figure out what it is they’re dealing with – then so be it. It’s not like I’m going to feel anything. Death comes to us all, and right now it is knocking at my front door. Please God, let it be soon.
By Paul Benvin
As I write this, the germ – if that is in fact what it is – has almost ravaged my entire body. I am typing this, ever so slowly, with my one remaining finger. The others are steadily leaking a yellow puss of some kind and have swelled immensely, looking more like hot dogs that have been left on the grill for too long instead of actual human appendages. The rest of my body is almost unrecognizable, blown up so badly that even the slightest movement causes me extreme pain. My hair began to fall out almost immediately, leaving my scalp in large, greasy tufts. It too was covered in the same yellow slime. This is a very daunting task, to be sure.
How I caught it is no mystery – my dog passed it on to me – but where it came from is the real riddle. Was it a bug of some kind? Maybe it was a chemical. Or maybe little green men flew down from some fucking place – possibly Uranus, yuck yuck – and pumped my dog full of some extraterrestrial substance. Whatever it was, it has done a number on my pooch, and now it has got my balls in the proverbial wringer. How could this have happened, you ask? Well, I took Piper, my American Pit Bull Terrier, out to go to the bathroom this morning at about 4:00 a.m. She is – was – a very attractive animal. Her coat was a shiny red, the only contrasting color the white patch of fur over her left eye. And she loved to play. One of her favorite games was playing tug-of-war with the red, white, and blue rope I bought for her at the local pet shop. She had such good muscle tone that one time, when I took her in for her annual checkup, the vet actually called her an athlete.
It was freezing that morning – and when I say freezing I mean the type of cold that makes the snot in your nose freeze the second you take in air – so I opened the shed door and let her in. I figured I wasn’t going to need anything out of there until Spring at the earliest, so what harm would it do to let her take a piss in relative warmth. As I said before, it was really cold, so I went back inside and stood by the door. Usually, when she’s done with her business, she’ll come back and scratch or cry when she wants to be let in. But after fifteen minutes or so – I got preoccupied by a very in depth expose on the current Michael Jackson fiasco – she hadn’t scratched or cried. I figured it was nothing, so I walked back outside to the shed, where I found her cowering in the corner behind the riding lawnmower. She was whimpering, with her tail between her legs and her ears pulled back flush against her head. I called to her, and when she didn’t come to me I knew something had really spooked her good. She never disobeyed me that way. I got her when she was six weeks old and began to train her right away. She knew my voice and my commands, so I was definitely perplexed at her reluctance to come when I summoned for her. I tried again, making sure to keep my voice low and soothing, but still nothing. As I walked over to her, she shrunk against the wall, but I knew she recognized me when she feebly started wagging her tail. I couldn’t understand it. It all became clear though when I picked her up and noticed the golf ball sized lump just above her right eye.
By the time I walked the thirty feet or so to the house, her face had already begun to swell grotesquely. Both her eyes were completely shut, and her lips were now the size of pork chops. When I touched them, they were so filled with fluid I thought her face was going to explode. I immediately ran some cold water over her face to wash off any remaining poison – at the time I just thought it was some sort of bug bite – and placed a cold compress over the affected areas. I really felt bad for her. Being the compassionate person that I am, I walked over to the recliner and sat down, carefully placing her on my lap. She would nod off for a few minutes at a time, but then wake up and begin to whine. It was like she was trying to tell me it hurt, the poor thing.
I sat there in that recliner with her for more than an hour. Every fifteen minutes I would take the compress off her face to look at the swelling, and the last time I did this is when she bit me. She really sank her teeth into me, hard enough to draw a fair amount of blood, and anyone familiar with dogs knows that Pit Bulls have one hell of a chomp. I was shocked! Never in the two years I had Piper did she ever bite me, aside from the playful nips here and there. She wouldn’t even get upset when I tried to take her food away from her. I honestly don’t think she knew what she was doing. I set her down gently on the chair and went into the bathroom to clean the wound. I opened my oak medicine cabinet and retrieved the bottle of rubbing alcohol, pouring a generous amount onto a folded piece of paper towel. After running warm water over my hand for a few minutes, I gently cleaned the bite, wincing as the alcohol made contact with the bite marks. As I removed the towel, I noticed to my amazement that the punctures were already inflamed and sore. I wouldn’t realize it until later, but whatever she had was now coursing through my bloodstream.
I must have dumped the entire bottle of rubbing alcohol on my hand, trying to kill the germ of course. But it didn’t work. In less than an hour my entire arm ballooned hideously. If I had a sense of humor about the situation, I would say it looked like a sausage link, but as you might guess I’m not in a laughing mood right now. My dog – my loyal Piper – is dead. She succumbed rather quickly, but I know from her awful howling that it was not without pain. By the time the germ had completely taken her over, she looked like something out of a science fiction novel. Her head was the size of a football, and her once muscular and toned body was so disgustingly bloated, I thought for sure when I picked her up she was going to burst. In the end, I buried her in the yard. She was a really good dog, and if I knew I was going to live through this, I would most definitely miss her.
Now I sit here, plodding away on this computer with my one good finger, awaiting my certain demise. I always thought it would be nice to know when the end was coming – to be able to make preparations, you know – but now I can’t wait until this is all over. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror, although I’m not quite sure I would be able to now anyway. My eyes are starting to close up, not from fatigue but from the inflammation that has taken over every inch of me. I have an obscene headache, and if I didn’t know any better I would say that my skull is beginning to morph as well. For some reason The Elephant Man comes to mind. If I were a betting man I would put a very handsome wager on my friends and family not recognizing me right now. I’m sure they would be horrified. I now have a box of Kleenex next to me, because I’ve noticed a slimy emission has started to trickle from my ears as well. I’m sure if I checked, the same substance would be leaking from other holes in my body, but to tell you the truth I’m not sure I even want to know at this point. My typing finger is swelling again, and I can actually feel my arms getting bigger as I sit here. What does it feel like? Take the worst muscle ache you have ever had and multiply that by about a thousand. It’s about ten times worse than that. Aspirin quit working hours ago, so now I have to deal with it the best I can. What about a bullet, you ask? I have actually thought about that, but much to my chagrin I can’t even get up off the chair to reach my gun. My legs quit working about an hour ago, and even if I could stand up, I doubt my swollen ankles would be able to support the weight. I live in the middle of nowhere – my closest neighbor is nearly a mile away – and for years this was the family’s hunting and vacationing spot. My father, the one who bought the place years ago, never had a phone installed and I never thought to remedy the situation. That was one of the alluring qualities of this place – seclusion. After living in the city for most of my forty-five years, coming up here to get away from it all was a welcome change. But I’m starting to ramble. I wanted to get this down on paper for whoever finds me when it’s finally over. I’m sure my body will be tested and experiments will be conducted, but I really don’t mind. If the doctors want to hack my carcass into little bits – if it will help them figure out what it is they’re dealing with – then so be it. It’s not like I’m going to feel anything. Death comes to us all, and right now it is knocking at my front door. Please God, let it be soon.