Day: August 19, 2022

Style my Coonskin Cap with “Dippity Do” and call me Davey Crockett. 2022 isn’t half over, and I get slapped with another surprise.

6 months ago, I had a growing itchy spot on my back. It looked like a spider bite or an irritated mole. My wife, being a senior nurse, said we should keep an eye on it. It grew larger and became a source of irritation. I begged her to cut it off with my razor-sharp Chef Ramsey Ginzu knife, but she is no surgeon and wouldn’t perform the deed.

Do you know how a bear or a Badger scratches against a tree when he has an itchy back? Well, that would be my mode of rubbing the pesky spot.

Door jambs, cedar trees, fence posts, metal displays at Home Depot, anything with a good edge would do. Then, of course, people would stare at me as if I was Autistic, but at 73 years old, who cares?

Yesterday, while working in the yard during a balmy 102 degrees, I had an itching attack and rubbed up against a fence post to relieve the pain. Seems I caused enough damage to form a significant bloody spot on the back of my tee-shirt. When my wife came home from H.E.B., where she attends a 12-step grocery shopping program, she almost fainted when she saw the growing blood spot, figuring I had been hit by a stray bullet being fired at a feral cat or an errant shot from a kid with a new 22 rifle. But, of course, we live in the country, so it’s expected out here. Cats don’t live too long, and kids shoot at anything.

She checked the spot and immediately got on the phone with a local Dermatologist.

Nurses are a secret society, much like the Free Masons. They use secretive trigger words, tattoos, unique jewelry, and intricate handshakes when needed. She got me in to see the Doctor this morning, no questions asked. The sisterhood is strong.

My Dermatologist was a young lady. Pretty as a town dog and full of piss and sterilized vinegar. She raised my shirt and exhaled a slight gasp. I heard it and caught the look between her and my wife; it was not good. I started sweating and palpating.

Her prognosis was a huge-ass mole or alien-induced object that had grown from my back and is now a thing of ugliness and probable impending death. What I didn’t expect was her diagnosis of a severe case of “Shingles” on my back.

“How can that be? I asked; I never had the Chicken Pox or the Monkey Pox.” She replied you don’t have to; it’s a communicable disease that can spread as quickly as Covid 25 or the Kardashians.”

She gave me a few deadening shots in the back with a syringe that looked like the ones we used to vaccinate cattle and cut off the offending growth for a trip to the lab. I almost passed out from the pain. She then took her iPad and dialed Father Frank, our local priest, at “Our Lady of Perpetual Repentance.” He looked at my shingles via the iPad camera and said I may need an immediate exorcism or a good hot bath in Holy Water scrubbed by Nuns using blessed holy soap direct from Italy. My shingles outbreak was an exact artist replica of a laughing “Hillary Clinton.” This Demonic force has a deranged sense of humor.

I told the doc that I was having spine surgery in two weeks, and she said no surgeon in their right mind would touch me because of the infection and the possible demonic possession that could infect the entire surgery staff. She said a prayer, crossed herself and left the room. I should hear back in a few days if I have more cancer or if the Hillary Shingles have taken possession of my deteriorating body. Avoid getting old if you can. At least no limbs or digits have fallen off yet. But there is always tomorrow.