It’s been an interesting few weeks for me lately. My stepfather has been in the hospital after some post-surgery complications, with 12 of those days in ICU. So I’ve spent more time at the hospital lately than I ever have in my life. During our time in the ICU waiting room area, we encountered many other families with loved ones in ICU. And, in our own way of coping with stress, we were thoroughly entertained by some of these folks.
Among them was a family whose situation I became very familiar with due to the fact that they didn’t care who heard their conversation. A woman’s husband had fallen ill and was lucky to still be alive. According to her story, he had begun feeling dizzy several days earlier and felt extremely weak. Besides vomiting and having other symptoms, she described in great detail a boil that had formed on his butt. And not just any boil, but a large black boil that grew to the size of a saucer. After several days of not knowing what to do, she said that he finally passed out one night while sitting on the toilet, fell to the floor, and began coughing up blood. It was only then that she decided to take action and call 911.
Well, the doctors asked all kinds of questions and were perplexed when they couldn’t determine the cause of his symptoms. Finally they asked her if he had been bitten by anything.
“Oh yeah,” she answered, “he got bit by a spider last week – that’s what caused the boil in the first place.”
It turned out he had been bitten by a Brown Recluse, one of two poisonous spiders native to the U.S. In the meantime, the poor man’s condition had worsened and he almost died before they found out this key bit of information. But the worst part of this story was when the woman and her friends, who were there for support, began trading their own “butt boil” stories, as if this were as common of an occurrence as catching a cold. Personally, I can’t recall ever having a boil, much less on my buttocks. And I certainly never expected to be regaled with multiple anecdotes dealing with such a phenomenon.
The next day a large man who was with the butt boil family asked my mother who she was there for and what his name was. He said he was an evangelist and could add his name to their television prayer list.
“Um, no thanks – I’m good,” she replied.
With that, he stood up and, in the middle of the room, began preaching to everyone within earshot. My mom promptly picked up her belongings and left. Fortunately, my stepdad has been moved into a private room. We won’t have to deal with anymore of that lunacy. But as long as I live, I’ll never forget the “butt boil” family.
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