It started with a teeny-tiny lump on the inside of my upper thigh. I wasn’t very concerned; I get them every once in a while, usually if I sweat a lot after having just shaved my crotch. Either they’re close enough to the surface for me to pop, or they go away on their own. This one was a bit deep, so I figured that it would take care of itself.
The very next day, it had grown to the size of a baby’s fist—wrist included—and it hurt to do anything. I couldn’t walk, sit down, or do anything without this grotesque lump killing me. The only thing that felt good was when I laid down with my legs spread. Only then did I not feel any pain.
During these moments, I tried feeling this fucker out. It was literally hard as a rock. It had to be filled with pus, or something, but it was packed in really hard. You couldn’t see it if I was standing, but if I was sitting down, especially on the toilet, you’d be able to see it poking out from under my skin.
I remember thinking that this thing had to abate soon, so I started hoping it would just go away. It couldn’t possibly get bigger, right? And it had to stop hurting soon, because I hadn’t had a bowel movement in days. That couldn’t possibly be healthy. Not to say that I hadn’t tried, of course. It’s just that it hurt too much to sit down.
What shocked me the most was how hard this fucking thing was. It was exactly like carrying a rock under my skin. I could feel it move back and forth under my flesh with every step I took. I could feel it smoosh up against the chair whenever I sat down. The worst part: whenever I’d been sitting down for a long period of time, and my balls got stuck to the rock. Peeling my scrotum away from the lump was kind of like removing duct tape from a hairy spot on my body.
It didn’t take me long to realize that this thing was not going to leave of its own accord. My brother’s birthday is on St. Patrick’s Day, so I’d taken the day after off from work. You know, for recovery. I figured I’d see a doctor later in the afternoon of my day off to see what the fuck this thing could possibly be.
In the meantime, it was time to do what every hypochondriac in the country does when something goes wrong with their bodies: I went online. Because, you know, number one fear when it comes to a giant lump under one’s skin: tumor. In my mind, I was already assuming the worst. It wouldn’t be a tumor that would kill me. No, it would be malignant, all right, but it would be just bad enough to have to cut my leg off.
Hey, never have high expectations. If you do, you’ll be disappointed a lot.
I looked around a bunch, starting off with ol’ reliable, webmd.com. In no time at all, I had decided that I had a subcutaneous cyst. Sometimes, such things had to be surgically removed, but most times, all they had to do was drain it. This sounded a lot better than a leg-removing tumor, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. I was already trying to figure out how the fuck I was going to drive with my left leg. And since it was so high up, I knew I wouldn’t have a nub for them to put a prosthetic leg on, so I’d probably have to get around on crutches, or maybe I’d just get a wheelchair.
Then, things started to get uglier. The pain worsened. The rock got a bit bigger. And I started feeling kind of pukey. I would find myself hovering over the toilet, ready to break loose, but nothing ever came up. My leg started getting really, really hot, almost hot enough to cook off of.
Just about everyone at work said I looked like shit. I was sweating all over myself, I was pale, and it looked like I was going to collapse. I couldn’t take it anymore; I left work early to go to the emergency room.
After they took down my information, they took me to a room where they asked me to take my clothes off (except for my underwear) and put on a gown. I did so and sat on the cot and waited for the doctor.
Except, it wasn’t the doctor who came in but two nurses. Incredibly hot nurses. One of them was an easy 20 out of a 1-10 scale, and the other, while not as gorgeous as her partner, was still a more-than-serviceable 10. They each had a cart full of medical supplies, but everything was wrapped up, so I couldn’t tell what they were . . . except for the rubber straps, which were undoubtedly used for sticking needles into their patients.
And then I realized, holy shit. These incredibly beautiful women are going to see my pain-shriveled junk. And that is how they will remember me. Goddammit. And this is a considerable thing. My balls were still hanging at their usual spot, but my dick had shriveled up to the size of a cashew. A fat cashew, but a cashew nonetheless.
Luckily, they did not ask me to take off my boxers. They just asked to see the spot, so I carefully peeled my boxer leg up until the rock was exposed. The inside of my thigh was now a dark-red color, which it hadn’t been that morning.
“Jesus,” I said, and I explained the whole story behind the lump, as far as I knew.
Both nurses put on gloves and poked around the rock. Though their touch was gentle, I still felt jolts of pain go through my body. It took all of my willpower not to scream. Finally, after they’d had their way with the rock, they told me to lay back and wait for the doctor. I asked what they thought it was, and they said that I have an abscess.
What is an abscess? I hear you ask. Well, when there’s an infection in your body, your body (ever the efficient peacekeeper) sends cops (white blood cells) down to ground zero, where they barricade the infected area, causing a pocket to form. The infected stuff lives in here until the body finds a way to drain it off, usually by sending it squirting out of the skin . . . but my abscess was so far down, there was no way this would happen. The only answer was medical intervention.
How does such a despicable thing form? It could be caused by an ingrown hair, or a hair follicle gets infected, or a foreign object gets lodged into the skin down there, or there is some kind of trauma.
The rock was located almost directly on the crease between my crotch and my thigh, just on the thigh side of the line. Considering how I shave down there, I thought it was probably an ingrown hair that did me in.
The doctor came in, but only one nurse joined him: the 20. I’m usually not into blondes, but she was startling in her beauty. The ancient Greeks would have built a thousand statues in her name, and they would have worshipped her morning, day, night, afternoon . . . .
The doctor introduced himself and then described what he was going to do. First, I was going to get a dose of painkillers, and then they were going to make a tiny incision in my thigh in order to drain the bad stuff out. Then, after they got as much of the stuff out as they could, they were going to pack the pocket with gauze, something they called a wick, probably because a portion of it will be hanging out of my leg. The purpose of this is to soak up any more infection and allow it to drip out of me into a bandage they will then affix to my thigh. Then, I will be prescribed antibiotics.
Sounds like a plan. Let’s light this bitch up.
The nurse grabbed my boxers to pull them as far over as possible to give the doctor room to work. In the process, she grabbed my junk and yanked, nearly pulling me off the table. “Ug!” I gasped.
“Sorry,” she said. One of my balls had popped out, and she grabbed it—as if it were merely a grape—and shoved it back into my boxers. I groaned through my teeth. “Be careful with those,” I barely managed. “I might need those someday.”
“Sorry,” she said again.
I looked up just in time to see the doctor brandishing a needle close to my crotch. Instinctively, I threw my leg up to cover the frank and beans. Horrible visions of CEMETERY MAN slouched through my head.
“It’s okay,” the doctor said. “You’re going to feel a slight pinch. This is the stuff we give to people when we’re going to stitch them up.
Shit. Recently, I’ve had no less than three dentists sticking needles into my fucking gums. I could probably take this, right? I relaxed my leg and braced myself. And then the pinch came, along with a burning sensation. I started muttering, “Owwie, ouch, argh, owwie, owwie, owwie.”
The nurse laughed. “You’re doing fine, hon.”
I continued with my mantra of baby-pain-talk until the needle was out of me. “That’s the worst part,” the doctor said.
“I hope so,” I said.
“Pull his boxers back more,” the doctor said, and the nurse listened, yanking my shriveled penis with it. It felt like she was folding it into origami and trying to figure out where my balls went.
“Please stop manhandling those,” I whispered.
“Sorry,” she said.
The incision was surprisingly painless. It was done before I even realized it. However, when the doctor started squeezing my thigh, it was one of the worst fucking things I’d ever felt. Apparently, the painkillers can’t go deep enough, so I had to just deal with it.
It felt like I was getting a massage from the Incredible Hulk, and after each squeeze, a torrent of fluid came splashing out of my leg and into the pan they had between my thighs. When Niagara Falls stopped pouring, it sounded like he was squeezing a sponge rather than a rock. It was about that point when I realized he was actually getting blood from a rock, but I was too busy emitting a high-pitched EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE sound to let the doctor in on this little joke.
“Okay, we’re done with that part,” the doctor said. “Was that so hard?”
“I felt all of that,” I said.
He offered me a bemused look. I think it was his way of saying, “I couldn’t fuckin’ tell.” “We just have to put the wick in, and then we’re done.”
“Will that hurt?” I asked.
“Probably not.”
It did, but at least it was brief. “Put a bandage on him and get him on antibiotics,” the doctor said. “Good luck, Mr. Bruni. See a doctor in the next two days to check on the dressing.”
“I was going to see a doctor on Thursday,” I said.
“Who?”
I gave him the name.
“Don’t see him. See a surgeon. I’ll set something up for you. It’s possible that we may need to open you up and remove the whole thing surgically. So, see a surgeon.”
As he left, a woman in a powersuit came in, and I knew right away that this was the insurance lady. She quickly confirmed this, and she had me sign a bunch of paperwork, including a document that allows the ER to work on me.
“A bit late for this one?” I asked, nodding down to the area that had just been worked on.
She offered me a smile that said, “Just sign the fucking paper.” So I did. I finished up, and she was gone.
The nurse put a gauze bandage over the spot (which I still refused to look at). She then started putting a bunch of medical tape down over it. Then, just to make sure it would stay on, she started slapping it down good and tight. I began to groan again.
“We have to make sure it doesn’t come off,” she said.
“I don’t even want to think about how much hair is going to come off when that bandage comes off,” I said, an arm over my face.
She giggled. “There’s not that much hair down there.”
“Ma’am, one hair is too many.”
She laughed again as the other nurse came back in. The 10 handed the 20 a cup, and the 20 handed the cup and some water to me. “This is some Motrin and a Tylenol. It should help with the pain.”
I gratefully took the pills, but I was more interested in the water. Throughout the entire procedure, my throat was parched. Finally lubricated, I handed both cups back, and they helped me sit up properly in the cot, which now had the back up.
“Just relax,” the 20 said, “and I’ll be right back.”
Now that I was at the proper vantage, I looked down at my thigh to see the bandage, already going from white to a dirty brownish-red. My blood was everywhere. On my boxers, on the cot, on the floor. I saw the pan on a cart nearby and saw that it was almost full. There was at least a pint of blood in there.
When the 20 came back, I asked, “Is that all from me?”
“Yeah. And sorry about your boxers. You gushed too much. They were kind of cute.”
I didn’t know how to take that from the goddess of beauty, who had all too recently folded my genitals into the Gordian Knot.
“Okay, we’re going to put you on an IV of antibiotics. Let’s see your arm.”
She was on my left side, so I offered my left arm, squeezing my fist. “At least this shouldn’t be too bad,” I said. “I’m told that my vein is easy to find.”
“They are pretty big.” She put the tie around my arm and started to stick the needle into my arm. Except, it hurt more than usual. I’ve had some needles in my arm recently, and none of them hurt this much. I started my owwie mantra again until she said, “Shoot. Your vein collapsed. I’m going to have to go again.”
She moved to my other arm as I considered her verbiage. Collapsed? What did that mean? As she carefully examined the crook of my other arm, I realized that the only people I know who have ever mentioned collapsed veins were junkies . . . HOLY SHIT, SHE’S LOOKING FOR TRACK MARKS!!!!!
She didn’t find any, so she put the tie on my arm, and this time, she shot straight. I hardly felt it. She hooked up the IV and said that when it was done, I’d be free to go. I asked for another cup of water, and when she gave me one, she went off for a half an hour while I stared off into space. I sipped at the cup and waited, wondering if I should test my weight on my thigh yet. I decided not to.
The IV began to beep, and she came back to take the needle out. She had a bunch of paperwork for me, as well, including a prescription for antibiotics. Since the following day was St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d ask if I could drink. The nurse recommended that I don’t, since alcohol lessens the effects of antibiotics. Since I never want to go through anything like this again, I agreed with her.
She left, I got dressed, and headed for the pharmacy, where I purchased my pills at an ominous price: $9.11. It was a sign of the disaster to come . . . .
So, I went to see the surgeon just like the doctor recommended. This was after I had tried going back to work with miserable results. I could barely function in that place. I couldn’t even sit down for long periods of time. It was awful, so I decided to go home early, so I could sit at home, being miserable, while the rest of America was out on the streets, celebrating a religious Irish holiday with copious amounts of booze.
After a reasonable amount of sleep (because when you have a fucking hole in the inside of your thigh, right up there by your balls, it’s hard to find a position that will allow for sleep), it was time to get up and go to the surgeon. I waited an extra half-hour in the waiting room, and then I waited another half-hour in an examination room, before he finally saw me. He ran through the usual questions before asking to see it.
Here came the moment I was dreading. “There’s a lot of hair down here,” he said, “so I’ll try to go easy.” He then started peeling the bandage away, and sure enough, it was sheer agony. “Just one more strip to go. Hang on.” By this point, I was starting to wonder if maybe I would never be away from this hair-ripping bandage, but thankfully, he pulled the rest of it away and began his examination.
“There’s some good drainage going here,” he said, “but it’s not going quickly enough. I think I’m going to have to open it a tiny bit further, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. Doctors know best, right?
“Let me just see how deep this thing is, first,” he said, and he stuck a Q-Tip in the hole, which nearly floored me. Now I know what it feels like to be a gunshot victim in the Wild West.
He called for a nurse to help, and guess what? It was an exact replay of what happened in the ER. This nurse grabbed a fistful of my boxers and yanked to the side, and some of my junk wound up between her fingers. More gasps of pain. I was sure that when this was all over, I’d be able to survive anything the Spanish Inquisition had to offer.
“I’m going to give you some painkillers,” the doctor said. “They probably gave you these in the ER, so you know about the pinch and burn.”
“Um, those painkillers didn’t really help me out,” I said.
“We can only numb you so far down,” the doctor said. “Lay back and relax. It’ll be over in a second.”
I felt the familiar pinch and burn, just as I had before. I gasped, and the nurse had to remind me to breathe. “It’ll be better that way. And don’t move your leg.”
I moved just about everything else, but in my throes I managed to keep my leg still.
He pulled the wick out, and more stuff came gushing out. “We have some good drainage,” he said. “But this will make it come easier.” He turned to the nurse. “Give me a number fifteen blade.”
Number fifteen?! That sounds kind of big. My imagination started working in overdrive, and all of a sudden, the surgeon was Dr. Giggles, and instead of a scalpel, he had a chainsaw.
I refused to look, and once again, the incision was done before I realized it. I heard more splashing as more infected blood came pouring out. Then, he began to squeeze, and the agony returned.
“It’s okay, we’re done with that part,” he said. “I’m going to put a new wick in.” He held it up to show me what it looks like, and I was surprised by how much he intended on using.
“All of that is going in me?” I asked.
“Yep. We need to make sure you’re packed in tight.”
More stuffing. More agony. More manhandling of my balls, but this nurse was nowhere near as breathtaking as the other one. 4, tops.
The bandage was slapped on over the wick, and the doctor made sure that I was going to see him in five days. Then, he was gone, and the nurse was helping me stand up.
“Wow, you’re draining a lot,” she said. “You’re supposed to change the dressing three times a day, but I think you might need to do it more often. Here’s a bunch of gauze and tape.”
I looked down to see that another pair of boxers had been ruined by this fucking abscess. Before he’d left, the doctor suggested I wear briefs until this thing clears up. Too fucking right, I would.
“It’s draining quickly. Here, let me give you something to at least get you home.” She rummaged around for a bit before she came up with a couple of Maxi-pads. Super-absorbent. She slapped them on around the bandage, helped me put my pants on, and wished me good luck. The doctor wanted me on different antibiotics, so they were going to phone ahead to my pharmacy so it would be ready.
I went to pick up my new pills, and as I was reading the instructions, I was flabbergasted. It was demanding that I couldn’t drink caffeine. Which meant, no more Coca-Cola for me. Which is a horrible thought. And I couldn’t drink milk, either. And the most shocking of all: avoid the sun. Wait, sunshine has been prohibited?! What am I, a fucking vampire? Or that guy in Dean Koontz’s Snow books? Apparently, taking this pill and staying out in the sun causes sunburn in a very, very short time.
Fuck. No booze, no Coke, no fucking sunshine, not to mention that I haven’t been able to eat or shit in days. If I were ever going to commit suicide, now would be the time. Oh yeah, according to the instructions, I might feel suicidal impulses.
I hate abscesses.
I went home, where I was going to just relax and do nothing. Well, that didn’t turn out so well. I took off my boxers, which were saturated, to see the damage. The pads fell away, covered in blood, and I saw the bandage, which was absolutely, 100% full of blood. The stuff was dripping down the inside of my thigh. I grabbed the gauze and tape and ran to the bathroom to remove the bandage.
Remember about my hairy legs? Oh, yeah. Not pleasant.
I finally got the tape off, and the gauze stayed in place. I peeled it away from my leg and noticed just in time that the wick was coming out with it. With a grimace, I reached between my leg and the bandage to pull the wick away from the bandage.
It was in that moment that I realized just how big the incision had been. The doctor said he’d wanted to open it up a bit, but what I saw was a fucking five-inch gash. He didn’t open it up a bit, HE FUCKING UNZIPPED MY GODDAM THIGH!
And only then did I notice how much blood was coming out of me. It was all over my legs and the bathroom floor. I situated myself so that the blood would go into the toilet, but I wound up getting red streaks on the porcelain, too. Before long, the water was a deep tinted red, and gore was still pouring out of me.
Remember how I was supposed to change the bandage three times a day? I wound up doing it NINE times. It’s a miracle that I still have hair on my thigh. I also learned that if I put a gauze wrap around my thigh, it would take the blood a lot longer to soak through, and I would be able to tell right away when it was about to reach critical mass.
Jesus, this is what I have to put up with for two weeks?
When I went back to see the doctor, he noted that while the drainage was much better, not all of it was coming out. He blamed the ER doctor, who had made the cut at the soft spot of the abscess, which was at the top. As a result, a bunch of pus-y blood was pooling in the bottom of the pocket. His solution: “I think I should make another incision.”
“I’d prefer not to,” I said, considering how there was already a huge fucking gash in my leg.
“This one would be much smaller than the one I made before,” he said. “It’ll only be a little hole in the bottom of the pocket. The drainage will be much better, and you’ll heal quicker.”
“But that’s exactly where I sit,” I said.
The doctor shrugged. “You’re not going to get better unless we do this.”
Shit. “Okay, let’s do this.”
So now I have another hole in my leg, and it hurts more to sit down. I need bigger bandages, which means more tape on my fucking hairy thigh, which means more pain when I change the dressing.
Fuck.
EPILOGUE (See? It's not all old. This was written today, July 23.)
It's been a while since the abscess went away, but it remains on my mind nonetheless. Eventually, the wick fell out on its own, and the slit and hole started closing up on their own. For the longest time, it still continued to dribble, but all that remains now is a puckered scar.
Yet, every once in a while, I feel a bit uncomfortable down there. Maybe I'm sweating too much, or maybe there's a storm coming, but sometimes, I feel a slight sting where the abscess used to be. Whenever this happens, the memories come back to me, and I gnash my teeth and tear at my hair.
The worst, though, happened yesterday. As I was taking a shower, I felt a sudden jolting pain where the abscess used to be. When I got out and was toweling off, I felt it again. I bent down to take a look, and what I saw horrified me.
At first, it looked like the scar had opened up again at the pucker. Then, I saw that a zit had grown there. At least, I hope it's a zit.
If I get another abscess, I'm blowing my brains out.
your blog was rather enjoyable
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