It's the Great Syphilis, Jordan Baker!

I had an epiphany of sorts while I was thinking about whether or not to tell the traditional story of the Thanksgiving I didn't have syphilis, and reading over the two previous Thanksgiving posts wherein I told it.

The epiphany was as follows: the Thanksgiving syphilis post is very much like Thanksgiving itself. In its essentials, it is the same year after year. But there are slight differences in the people who show up, and how they react to the event--whether it's a completely new experience, a tedious ritual that must be seen through, or a beloved tradition.

I look back at the comments on the previous posts, and think about the commenters that no longer turn out for either the yearly event or the everyday detritus. Some of them are deeply missed, like a favorite relative who's passed away. Others are more like the boyfriend your cousin brought one year--total douchebags you're glad to have never seen again. And then there are new faces--some eager and innocent like small children on their first holiday, others jaded but willing, like the slutty but kind of cool girl your brother brought home from college his freshman year.

And many of the faces are the same--comfortable, reassuring, treasured. A reminder of how things have changed; a reassurance that the important things don't.

On that note, we present year 3 of A Very Syphilitic Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we celebrate the day when some of my ancestors saved a bunch of damned New England WASPs from starvation, only to be thanked with the tremendous gifts of smallpox and Christianity.

I would like to tell you about the glory days of my people, when apparently they roamed the earth in wagons drawn by impossibly large turkeys. But since I’m only like 1/64th Native American, and hence not really credible when I try to pull off the bitter and disenfranchised routine, I thought I’d tell you a quite different story of Thanksgivings of yore.

Tomorrow I make my usual Thanksgiving trip down to SoMD to see my redneck relatives. Three years ago, though, I made up a thoroughly implausible story involving a bereaved friend I’d promised to spend Thanksgiving with, and bailed on the whole thing. I made two pies (one pumpkin, one bourbon chocolate pecan), and glutted myself on wine and sausage stuffing at Megarita’s dinner.

The next morning, I woke up with red spots on my hands, feet, knees, and chest.

I’m allergic to very few things in life, but when I have a reaction, it tends to be serious and swift. So I knew from previous experience (with a Sulfa medicine in college) that the spots would soon be followed by nausea, dizziness, difficulty breathing, swelling of the throat, weakening of the joints, blurred vision, and collapsing in a heap in the bathroom. And I knew it was time for a visit to the hospital.

But. . .it was the day after Thanksgiving. Roommate was out of town. Peacock was out of town. Everyone I knew in the city was out of town. I called L and the Fauxiance. Both out of town. So I dressed myself quickly and dragged myself downstairs, planning to head for the train.

Fortunately, the Borg was there. “Yordan,” he said, “how was jor Thanks-geeeving?” then he did a double take. “Ju have espots on ju.”

I asked him to drive me to GW Hospital, and he said “jes.” So he dropped me off at the entrance to the emergency room, where I showed them my "espots." They quickly got me into a little curtained cubby, made me put on a paper gown, and there I sat, waiting.

And waiting.

And. . .waiting.

While I was waiting, I eavesdropped on the woman in the curtain next to me, who apparently had a “tree shaped rash.” “You probably have syphilis,” the doctor told her.

“I don’t have syphilis,” the woman replied.

“Everyone thinks they don’t have syphilis,” the doctor replied, condescendingly.

“No,” the woman said. “I know I don’t have syphilis. I just had a baby; they gave me a syphilis test when I found out I was pregnant. I don’t have syphilis.”

“Oh,” the doctor said, sounding disappointed.

Finally, a med student came in to see me, so in addition to being covered with spots, I now have the indignity of having a doctor younger than me for the first time in my life. His name was Henry, and he had “never seen anything like” my rash before. I tried to explain to him that I, in fact, had—on my own skin, anytime I had an allergic reaction to something.

Henry decided that an MA in English didn’t make me qualified to diagnose my own rash, and went to get his textbook so he could compare my rash to pictures of other rashes.

I waited. It’s probably meningitis, I thought to myself. Every time I’ve been sick in my life, since I was about three years old, people have thought it was meningitis. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the words “It’s either (insert totally benign condition here), or it’s meningitis” (The number of totally benign conditions which are apparently just like the initial stages of meningitis would blow your minds).

It’s never been meningitis yet (touch wood), which means that a) someday, it will be, and b) I now laugh every time a doctor says it might be meningitis—in both a bitter “maybe my number’s up” and a snide “the second time (and all subsequent times since I was three) it’s farce” kind of way.

Henry came back with the Attending, who had been the source of the dire warnings on the other side of the curtain earlier. “What do we have to think when we see a rash on the hands, feet, and knees?” she asked Henry.

“Meningitis?” Henry said hopefully. I started laughing--life is so damned predictable sometimes.

The Attending looked at me disapprovingly—galled that anyone could find anything funny about meningitis. “No,” she said. “Syphilis.”

I stopped laughing. “I don’t have syphilis,” I told her.

“Everyone thinks they don’t have syphilis,” she replied condescendingly.

“No,” I told her, “I know everyone thinks they don’t have syphilis. I can’t have syphilis. I’m extremely sexually cautious. I get a full battery of STD tests every September when I go in for my annual, and I’ve only had one sexual partner in the last year. If I have syphilis,” I ended, tears beginning to well up “I am going to need to buy a gun and take the train out to Clarendon post-haste.”

“Test her for syphilis. And meningitis,” the Attending told Henry.

Henry waited until she walked off. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this,” he said, “but you don’t strike me as the sort of person who gets syphilis*.”

I sniffed. “You have good instincts, Henry. You’ll make an excellent doctor someday.”

So I waited some more, until the blood-tech came in to see me. He took my right arm, and found a vein almost right away, which is rare—it’s usually hard for people to find a vein in my right arm. “You’re very good at that,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said, “it’s my first time.”

I shut my eyes. “You really shouldn’t have told me that,” I replied.

Moments later, he said “oops!” and explained that he’d blown my vein. So he walked off with about a gallon of my blood, and Henry came back and put my feet up, gave me juice, and explained that I had to stay awhile to make sure I wouldn’t pass out on my way home, and that I should call Monday for my blood results. S

o I waited. And waited. I took Benadryl Friday night, and Saturday morning, the spots were gone. Monday I called the hospital, and they informed me that due to a backlog from the holiday, my bloodwork hadn’t been completed yet and I should call again Tuesday.

Tuesday I called again, and was transferred five or six times before a somewhat sheepish lab administrator explained to me that they’d lost my blood.

I gave him a few choice words about what I thought about a major teaching hospital that could misplace a gallon of blood that some untrained boy candy striper had blown a vein trying to draw.

He waited patiently and told me that I should contact my normal doctor so I could be tested for meningitis and syphilis.

“The rash is gone,” I told him. “It went away the next day. Plus, I looked up syphilis online, and it said that the rash for that would be copper colored. Mine was pink. And I was tested for meningitis when I had a cold earlier in the month. And the spots went away after I took Benadryl, so I think it was just an allergic reaction.”

He then told me in a few choice words what he thought about English teachers who tried to diagnose themselves by using the internets, and reiterated his belief that I should get tested.

So I went into Turtle U’s health center—where they cheerily informed me that they would do the tests for free since as a state employee, I could be a public health risk if I had either of these diseases. Woo-hoo! Talk about your unexpected benefits! My salary bites, but I can get free syph tests whenever I want to! Sign me up, baby! I need to start milking this!

And they drew another gallon of blood, and told me to come back in a week. Long story short (too late!) I didn’t have syphilis or meningitis. The doctors informed me that it had probably been an allergic reaction to something I ate at Thanksgiving.

Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait. I did. The girl with the pink "espots" and the MA in English figured out what she had days before the staff of George Washington University Hospital or the State of Maryland’s Bureau of Public Health.

Ass bastards.

So tomorrow, as you bow your heads and thank whatever higher power you struggle with your tenuous belief in for the bounty s/he has laid before you, take a moment to thank him/her for your health, and to ask him/her not to smite you with spots in the next few days. Because let me tell you, the day after Thanksgiving, the emergency room staff of most major hospitals are just looking to tell you that you have something more exciting than allergic reaction. Which is exactly what it’ll end up being anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Don’t get syphilis.


*what in hell does this mean, by the way? Does it mean I look like a nice non-skanky girl, or someone who can’t get laid? I guess both have been true at various points. . .