Body Horror In Week Seven

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 14.472% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

This story starts out with me picking at a blister.  So if that’s too much for you, stop now.
But the blister had been swelling on my stomach for three days, just underneath my ribcage and to the right of my belly button, and it was starting to really hurt.  So I picked at it, and…
…a stitch popped out, like a meerkat poking its head out of a hole.  I pulled at it gently, since my body is full of dissolvable stitches, and most of them have degenerated to the point where they pull away like wet cotton.
But no.  This one was rooted deep in my belly; I could press down on the wound and see the stitch sliding back and forth in it, maybe three-quarters of an inch revealed, like a pillar being revealed as the tide went out.  “Oh, just yank it out,” said Gini, reaching over to give it a good hard tug.
“No!” I yelped, slapping her hand away.  And in bending over, the stitch slipped back into my body.  And, sliding around under the skin, created another blister.
By the time I finally managed to pick it out of my body three days later, I was ready.  I asked Gini to get me a pair of small scissors so I could at least cut the offending portion out – and when I did, I realized something chilling:
This wasn’t a stitch.
It was copper fucking wire.  Clad in white plastic insulation.
“Uh, Gini,” I said.  “I think that’s the wire they used to tie my ribs together after they cracked my chest open.”
Which didn’t make much sense, as I knew they had to use a lot of strength to seal my shattered chest back into place, and this wire was the size of – well, a small thread.  But by the time I could investigate, the remaining bit had retreated into my body.
Gini, worrying that my insides were now wormed through with pointy bits of sharp copper wire, perforating my liver, instructed me to call the doctors.  So I did.  They were quite jolly.
“Oh, that’s not related to your ribs,” they said.  “That’s a wire that leads to your heart.”
What?”
“It’s the wire that we use to hook you up to a pacemaker during surgery, just in case something goes wrong.  But the pericardium seals up quickly, and taking it out risks small bleeding.  So we leave it in you.  But you’ve lost thirty pounds since the operation, so it’s not a surprise it’s coming out.”
I remembered Gini, about to yank real hard on the wire, and felt sick.
“So… what would have happened if someone had pulled on it really hard?” I asked, envisioning something very much like this.
“It would have come out.  Probably had a little internal bleeding.  Nothing serious.”
“No, no, nothing serious at all about someone removing a wire attached to my still-beating heart,” I muttered.
“Say, when you cut the wire, did you sterilize the scissors? Because if that portion of the wire is back in your body again, we’re going to have to put you on a course of antibiotics….”
So now I’m on Keflex again, and inside me is a copper wire threaded through to my heart.  If I lose more weight again, it might re-emerge, and then I can tug on it like a bell clapper – a route for me to poke my internal organs directly.  Which is a thought that fills me with pure ick.

2 Comments

  1. Tiffany
    Mar 3, 2013

    They actually did pull that wire out of Joey in the hospital. He said it didn’t really hurt, but was indescribably weird feeling.

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