Michael D. Davis.

You know how you’re going along, and then you have a pulsing black bump on your body that is leaking some unidentifiable fluid? No? Just me?

Well, this year started out with a bang, or should I say a bump. I’m going along, and I notice a bump on my leg. A bump’s a bump, right? No big deal. Then, a week or so later, it had doubled in size, the skin had turned black, and there was this stuff coming out of it. So, I thought I’d go see what the Doc had to say about it. Apparently, it wasn’t good.

They have me on this table in a back little procedure room. I’m laid back with my shorts hiked up so they can get a good view of my injured ham hock, they raise the table, then they numb me up. Someone numbs up as much of my leg as they can, and the Doc comes in and starts cutting. They cut off the blackened skin and some other tissue, and essentially leave me with a large hole in the leg. As the Doc was carving me up, I managed to bleed just about everywhere. I bled on gauze, myself, my clothes, the table, and the floor.

So, I went from a big black oozing bump to a large bloody hole. Honestly, this was a pretty lateral move. The Doc wanted me to come the next morning to see if I needed more cutting, and so my hole could get packed. I went home, bled on the couch, and popped some very large pain pills until the next morning.

The sun was still trying to wake up when Ma and I got up and out of the house. Ma drove, and I just slumped in the passenger’s seat, moaning, as we went towards the doctor’s office. We went past Ellenbeckers corner heading south, and a large brown dog with a green collar dashed in front of our car. The dog had completely cleared the car and was three blocks away by the time Ma slammed on the brakes and screamed, “DEER!” I had enough time to see the dog pass and think to myself that Ma must not have seen it by the time she slammed on the brakes. I said that was clearly a dog, and it was a few towns over by the time she hit the brakes. Ma said I was nuts and that it was clearly a deer. We argued all the way to the doctor’s office. The nurse who brought us back heard us arguing and said she saw a dog running about when she came to work a few moments prior. Being my sarcastic self, I asked if she was sure if it wasn’t a deer. The nurse said, “I don’t know many deer that wear collars.”

That second day, they did a little more cutting on me to clean up my new hole. It was at this time that I decided to mention another bump I had. I went back and forth on keeping it to myself because it had not yet turned black. I hiked up my shorts again, and the doc took out her scalpel. After only a few brief cuts, the doc’s scalpel hit something hard. The doc couldn’t see what it was due to all the blood, but the sound the scalpel made on it was like someone picking at cement with a fork. It was numb, but I could feel it, and Ma across the room could hear the ‘thdik! thdik!’ sound that the scalpel made against it. Finally, the doc managed to extrapolate a little rock-like item. I was then sent home and told to come back the next morning.

On day three, I brought it to my doc’s attention that the bump where she got the rock out the day before had bumped back up. The doc got back out the scalpel, cut a little deeper, and found another rock thing. This time, the rock hole was so big that they decided I needed stitches. So, they put a stitch or two in me, but that popped and didn’t work so they took it out. So, then they tried staples. They put staples in me, but those weren’t working either, so they took them back out. The third time was the charm, however, with another set of stitches. I was then told to go home and come back the next morning.

On day four, I was looking pretty good, but there was one piece of black skin still hanging from my big, bloody hole. So, my Doc took out a pair of scissors and attempted to cut it off. If they hadn’t forgotten to numb it first, I wouldn’t have cared. After the initial painful snip, I was numbed up and cut on a little more. Afterwards, I was told to go home and come back the next morning.

Since Ma was at work, on day five, I drove myself even though my father came along, I guess just for the ride. I was looked over. I was healing. I was sent home. A week or two later, I had the stitches come out of the rock hole and the remaining opening glued up. My big bloody hole took three months to heal. For three months, I went about my business with a hole in my leg the circumference of a pop can. So, that happened. I don’t have any morals or lessons other than if something on you has turned black and started weeping fluid, maybe go get it checked out.