Billy & the Doc-In-The-Box

Hello Time Bomb - Matthew Good Band (mp3)
Kiss the Dirt - The Brent Flood (mp3)

Herein lies the true story of my experience on Saturday, August 22, 2009. But first, some background. [NOTE: This entry is of a TMI medical nature and may not be suitable for young children or those with weak stomachs.]

Last Tuesday I emerged from my morning shower to notice an annoying zit-looking thing halfway between my belly button and my, well, junk. Because I seem to attract biting insects and arachnids of all stripes, I kind of assumed it was a spider bite. Wouldn't be the first time.

Because I'm a moron, I decided to treat it like a normal zit, and I tried popping it. When it didn't pop, I went on with my day and forgot about it.

On Wednesday morning, I emerged from my morning shower to notice that what had once been a spider bite-looking thing had spread. I mentioned it in passing to the wife and a nurse pal, and they suggested hydrocortizone and a bandage. Mmkay.

By Thursday night it was worse, and the wife thought it looked like a poison ivy thing. But because I'm a moron, I didn't think long enough to realize that the damn things didn't itch. So we just dumped some Calamine lotion on it, and I tried to go to sleep in spite of the fact that the lotion burned like the fires of eighteen hells.

By Saturday, I was honestly worried. It burned and hurt and looked downright ugly. (Yes, it took me 36 hours after the Calamine Lotion Incident to get past my stubborn hatred of acknowledging my vulnerability to the medical mysteries that plague mere humans.) I decided I couldn't wait 'til Tuesday or Wednesday -- school started Monday, so there wasn't a snowball's chance I could go Monday -- so I decided to go to a Doc-In-The-Box.

At 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, I entered the CVS. At 1:48 I finally managed to find the damn Minute Clinic that's inside the CVS. I signed up and was third in line. At 3:17 I got called in. At this point, the Minute Clinic had sucked away 89 minutes.

Technically speaking, you shouldn't call your business the Minute Clinic if it takes a dude 90 of the damn things just to get in the door.

Also, technically speaking, this Minute Clinic wasn't a "doc in the box." It's a "nurse practitioner in the box." The NP at this particular Minute Clinic looked -- I shit you not -- like Famke Janssen with a pinch of Jennifer Garner.

At this point, I had this inevitable flashback to that Friends episode where Joey and Chandler spend too much time watching porn? And then they go out into the real world where normal people have normal non-sexual encounters? And they can't believe they're not getting jumped and humped by all these random women? (No, I've never been propositioned by, nor have I ever propositioned, anyone in any such situations. For the record. But that doesn't keep me from having random pop-culture references or acknowledging the Famke-ness of a hot NP.)

"So how can I help you today?" Famke asked. At which point I began to unbutton my pants.

Now let me explain. I was already mighty nervous about this rash thing. Sitting in the middle of a CV-f*#kin'-S and finding yourself so bored you actually read the ingredients of Axe Body Spray only makes the nerves more fragile. At one point I had these weird flashes where some Devil Mosquito had injected me with bubonic plague or gonorrhea, as if I were being tested like Job... or maybe I was bein' PUNK'D! Where are you, Ashton, you motherf*#ker?!?!

So by the time I got into her "office," which is roughly the size of a high school locker, I was practically shitting myself with all these wickedly irrational fears. I wanted to get out of there ASAP, and the best way to do that was to get right to the point by showing her my rash.

I hadn't even undone my belt all the way when she was, like, "Whoa whoa whoa there!"

And I was, like, "Oh. Um. I swear I wasn't dropping trou. My rash is right here." And I gesticulated with my hands in the area where my World Wrestling Federation belt buckle might be.

"So, I can see this without... you know..."

"Oh... Ohh! No! I mean, yeah! Of course! I would've warned you! Totally!"

Nurse Famke relaxed a little at that point but kept her distance. Which, in her office, was maybe four inches away from me. "OK, let's take a look."

I basically drop my shorts so that I look "hip hop" and gain "street cred," which is to say the shorts are clinging desperately to the last curve of my butt lest gravity pull them to the floor. Somehow she feels more at ease with this look -- maybe because I'm keepin' it real, yo -- so she bends down to inspect these strange mega-zits along my waistline.

We talk like this for a few minutes. She's staring down at my crotch and asking me all these detailed questions, and I'm looking around at the pretty fluorescent lights and pretty little ear scope thingies.

Finally, she says, "blah blah blah Folliculitis."

And, I'm sorry, really I am, but I had to ask her to repeat it because I thought she said something vulgar. Something along the lines of "I'd like to f*#k you like this."

So she repeats the word and says, "It's an infection of the hair follicles. Bacterial infection."

Of course that's what I have! "Um, how does, uh, someone get, um, Fuglyitis?"

"Full-LICK-u-LIE-tiss. It's pretty common, actually. It's not that big a deal, really. I'll prescribe you some antibiotics, and it should clear up in 48 hours give or take."

After 30 minutes of paperwork and a few calls, I'm out the door of the Minute Clinic $65 poorer and having lost far more than one minute of my life. One hundred thirty-two minutes, to be exact.

As I'm driving home with my diagnosis, I call my former roommate Don, who's a doctor of pharmacy in Atlanta. Don quickly calms me some more by saying a lot of what Nurse Famke said. Folliculitis is fairly common. Sweat and dirt and a small open cut or hair follicle is all you need. Yada yada.

But then, because he's my former roommate with a twisted sense of humor, he has to take it one step further. "Still, you need to take it seriously if it's anywhere near your crotch," he says.

Gulp. "Why?"

"Because if it spreads it can turn into Fournier Gangrene."

"Fornicate... wha?"

"Gangrene of the scrotum."

At this point I almost wrecked our minivan. It's saying shit like "gangrene of the scrotum" into the receiver that people simply can't afford to hear as they're driving at high speeds on public roads.

While I'm swerving and instinctively reaching for my junk, as if a single human palm covering it could protect it from words like "Fournier gangrene," Don's still talking. "The smell can be pretty unbearable, because it's basically dead flesh, and it smells like a corpse. You can smell it all the way down the hall in a hospital. And the surgery... well that's the kind of surgery doctors talk about all the time 'cuz it's so extreme. They have to remove the necrotic flesh on your ball sac, and if it's run up your shaft at all it just gets worse."

I didn't say anything. I was wondering whether a grisly wreck might not be a less painful fate than Fournier gangrene. I imagined having my balls forced to live inside some fake plastic scrotum (no, that's not a Radiohead song), like they were hamsters or something.

But Don wasn't through.

"By the way, I'd love it if you'd be one of my groomsmen."

"Don, if I'm still a man with a scrotum by the spring, I'd be totally honored."

The Brent Flood offered their song gratis for promotion, so please consider taking a listen to them! The Matthew Good Band -- now just Matthew Good -- is from Canada, so they have to rock.