One of my drinking buddies invited me over after work tonight. He's a proctologist so he still puts in the hours.
Turns out business is a bit different since the Wuhan virus surfaced, he told me over the second beer. We were on the patio and I got the feeling he'd been drinking before I got there.
"Patients exhibit flu-like virus symptoms, plus extreme anal pressure," he said as he leaned toward me. His voice dropped to a whisper. "They don't talk about this on the news, but it's happening. I talk to other proctologists, you know."
My buddy is usually good for politics and beer, so I was caught by surprise. I felt like I was being set up for a joke but he seemed dead serious.
"I've had seven cases in the last eight days," he whispered so that I had to lean closer.
The first patient who complained of the pain did not object to the standard digital exploration, my buddy explained, and when he withdrew his finger hair was wrapped around it.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Or smelled anything like it."
He worked the hair out of the man's anus. By this time, the patient was on his stomach on the table, pants and shoes off and legs spread.
"I worked it out as he groaned," my buddy the doctor recounted. "He was telling me it hurt, and then he'd tell me it felt good."
Finally the whole hairy mass, slightly smaller than a golf ball, popped out, followed by about three days of shit.
In one case, my friend said the hair was already hanging out of a patient's anus when he arrived in the exam room. In each case the hair was about a foot long and the mass it was attached to was spongy, dark and bloody.
All of them have been sent to the CDC.
"I've never seen anything like it," he told me over the fourth beer for me.
I finally told him I was skeptical and I was tired of waiting for the punchline. He picked up his phone, found the photo he was looking for and showed it to me. It was a pic of my masked friend with a gloved hand holding up a hairy mass, with somebody's butt in the background. It was evident he'd used a selfie-stick to take the picture.
I don't know if it will make the news because the people who get it are not real sick with the virus or likely to get that way.
But I'm sure going to be increasing the fiber in my diet.
Turns out business is a bit different since the Wuhan virus surfaced, he told me over the second beer. We were on the patio and I got the feeling he'd been drinking before I got there.
"Patients exhibit flu-like virus symptoms, plus extreme anal pressure," he said as he leaned toward me. His voice dropped to a whisper. "They don't talk about this on the news, but it's happening. I talk to other proctologists, you know."
My buddy is usually good for politics and beer, so I was caught by surprise. I felt like I was being set up for a joke but he seemed dead serious.
"I've had seven cases in the last eight days," he whispered so that I had to lean closer.
The first patient who complained of the pain did not object to the standard digital exploration, my buddy explained, and when he withdrew his finger hair was wrapped around it.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Or smelled anything like it."
He worked the hair out of the man's anus. By this time, the patient was on his stomach on the table, pants and shoes off and legs spread.
"I worked it out as he groaned," my buddy the doctor recounted. "He was telling me it hurt, and then he'd tell me it felt good."
Finally the whole hairy mass, slightly smaller than a golf ball, popped out, followed by about three days of shit.
In one case, my friend said the hair was already hanging out of a patient's anus when he arrived in the exam room. In each case the hair was about a foot long and the mass it was attached to was spongy, dark and bloody.
All of them have been sent to the CDC.
"I've never seen anything like it," he told me over the fourth beer for me.
I finally told him I was skeptical and I was tired of waiting for the punchline. He picked up his phone, found the photo he was looking for and showed it to me. It was a pic of my masked friend with a gloved hand holding up a hairy mass, with somebody's butt in the background. It was evident he'd used a selfie-stick to take the picture.
I don't know if it will make the news because the people who get it are not real sick with the virus or likely to get that way.
But I'm sure going to be increasing the fiber in my diet.
