One Weird Day

Misdiagnosed - Part 1

It started with the pain in my right shoulder.

Or maybe not. It could have started with that cracked test tube I had thrown into the trash bin while cleaning George's lab. Given the fuss he had made about it, perhaps it hadn't been empty after all. He ended up pulling all the trash out of the bin and burning it in the back yard, wearing one of his biohazard suits. He then banned me from entering his study ever again. He also stopped talking to me altogether, and only winced or glared when I got in his way around the house.

A couple of days after the test tube, I felt my shoulder for the first time. I was mopping the floor, pondering once again whether it had been a smart move to marry a promising scientist only to end up as his cook and his cleaning lady. Everybody said we were an unlikely couple. Nobody could understand what he saw in an uneducated waitress working in the university café, who could only boast some cooking skills and a history of dysfunctional relationships. Despite everything, I thought he loved me. I thought we'd travel around the world, he'd teach and do his science things, I'd go shopping and see new places...

A sharp pain in my right shoulder made me drop the mop. I tried to move the hand around, and winced in pain. The floor remained unfinished, but I don't think George noticed. He was so involved with his work that he rarely noticed anything.

The young, handsome orthopedist seemed to be more interested in his computer than me. He kept nodding and smiling at it as I described my symptoms, probably reading something online instead of listening. When I finished, he notified me that what I had was called rotator cuff syndrome, and I should let my hand rest for a while before beginning physiotherapy.

I thought I'd update George on that, but he returned from work around 10 PM, and proceeded straight to his study. I felt like kicking his door open and shouting that I was more than a piece of furniture, but I knew it would be useless. Even in better times, our communication had mostly been limited to him babbling about proviruses, transgenetic lizards, and 'borrowing' the longevity and healing abilities from other species. My role had been to listen and nod. Nothing I had to say ever seemed to draw his attention.

I took my painkillers and went to bed.

At around 3 AM I woke up from the sound of his snoring. As I turned to my other side, not one but both of my shoulders screamed in pain. In addition to that, my back began to itch. I took more painkillers and spent half an hour in a hot shower rubbing my back with a sponge, which only made the itching worse.

"Unusual," said the doctor the next day, when I broke in without an appointment. He even granted me a brief look over. "Unusual, but possible. Symmetrical pain can be the result of repetitive movements with both arms. Are you into rowing or something? You should quit that for a while. And you should see a dermatologist about that itching."

The night before my visit to the dermatologist, I barely slept. The itching drove me crazy. George took his pillow and went to sleep in his lab.

The dermatologist was an elderly woman with thick glasses. She focused on her computer as much as the orthopedist did. Each time I said anything, she spent an inordinate amount of time clicking on her keyboard. Eventually she examined me and looked rather bored with the results.

"You should use moisturizing creams," she said. "Your skin is pretty rough. I don't see anything else wrong with it."

Rough was an understatement. By the time I got up that night, the itching has spread all over my body, and my skin felt like a turtle's shell. As I got to the bathroom mirror, I saw that my skin had developed a greenish shade. I bolted out of the bathroom and nearly ran into George.

"Look at me," I cried. "I'm sick!"

He did, and with an attention that I hadn't seen from him even on our wedding day.

"I see." He stepped back, looked me over. "Come with me." He put one hand on my back and ushered me towards his study, muttering, "Not quite planned, but still unmistakable... sit right here, darling, will you?"

Surprised by the use of 'darling', I sank down onto the leather couch, and watched him stride around the room, picking up glassy and shiny things.

"Call an ambulance," I said. "Or drive me to the ER."

"No." He frowned, as if confused by such proposal. "No way. They may actually stop this, and you are so...remarkable." He placed his items on the couch and sank to one knee, taking my hands into his. He had that excited look on his face, like when he'd talked to me about his research, when we first met. When he was still talking to me. I wish I'd paid more attention to what he had been working on—something about genetics, I'm sure, but I never understood enough to grasp the details. I'd found his fanatical devotion to science attractive back then. Things had changed.

"Look," he said, his eyes glistening feverishly. "You may be the answer to so many things now—to aging, illnesses, to human vulnerability in general. What you have is affecting your DNA, and we can't, we mustn't, in the name of science, inter --"

I pulled my hands out of his and jumped up, but he was on his feet even faster. We sprinted for the door, but with my joints hurting and my skin feeling like a tight latex suit, I was way slower. The door shut in my face, and I heard the key turn before I could grab the handle.

"You must understand," he said from the other side of the door. "It is important."

To be continued...