A Change in Lifestyle

By D. Ross Noble

The visit to the doctor was a disaster.  I just opened the lab results and felt physically ill.  I walked to the bathroom scale which creaked when I stepped on it confirming I’d gained 63 pounds in one year.  My image in the mirror was a monstrous sight.  Lesions the size of nickels oozed a clear liquid and my nose was the size of a morel mushroom. For God’s sake, I had spider veins in my eyes and the bags under my hideous peepers looked like I had packed for a two month European tour.

I’d become the perfect foil for the beer belly joke.  “Hey look at that guy; he’s a dickey-do!  I finished the punch-line in my head, “his tummy sticks out more than his dickey-do”.  I had to look in the mirror to see all the pimples and sores around my crotch and on the fronts of my thighs.  I sneezed and blood-stained mucus ran down my lip while I snatched a Kleenex from a box near the bathroom sink to wipe away the foul liquid.

What had I done with the lab results?  My memory was getting worse….”I’m too damn young to have Alzheimer’s or dementia for Christ’s sake!”  I wandered into the TV room searching for the, ahhhh lab report, picked it up and flopped into the easy boy.  What had the doctor said during the visit?

“Charley, this is an epidemic.  The U. S. Department of Health has issued a national alert and nearly 9,000,000 American adults are showing the very same symptoms.  We don’t know what’s causing it.  Have you started vomiting blood yet?  It will appear to be almost black.”  I remember nodding my head left and right and being unable to speak.  I was so emotionally and physically wrung out that I took a taxi home instead of the bus.

I picked up the lab report and pointed it at the big screen television, pressing it with my thumb. “I’m losing my fucking mind,” I shrieked as I threw the papers on the floor and picked up the remote control.”  The big screen cheerfully came to life and there were three hosts beaming into the camera.  The blonde woman said, “we here at FOX and Friends are pleased to announce that our market share has been nearly 9,000,000 viewers for the last year.

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