Dr. Google

A funny horror story about just how far we will go to trust what we read on the internet

Well you see I woke up and found this bump here.  I swear I’ve never seen it before.  It’s kind of brown and raised.  Smooth and maybe slightly soft?  Maybe I’ll grab the mirror for a better look.  Did it  just move?  Oh s**t, it did move.   Ick, now I’m getting the ‘heebie jeebies’.  Deep breath, deep breath.  In and out.  Slower.  Slower.  Okay.  Let’s think this through. 

                Maybe it’s a tick.  Ohhhh, no.  No. No. No. Not a tick.  My best friend since 5^th grade, she contracted Lyme disease from a tick and almost died.  She was hospitalized for 3 months and has lifelong complications.  I do not need this right now.  I need Dr. Google.  Dr. Google, please help.

                I pull out my phone and search as fast as possible.  Come on.  Load, load.  4G is deceivingly slow.  Finally, 41 million plus results.  Dr. Google says ticks are small arachnids that are vectors for disease.  So they don’t kill, they just transport the evil little gift of death.  F**k.  Am I going to die?  My best friend didn’t die, but her parents had awesome health insurance.  But back then, they didn’t have Dr. Google.  I have Dr. Google.  No matter what it takes, I am not going to die.  Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Ehrlichiosis, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, exc.  Is this even English?  There are so many more diseases than I had imagined.  The list on the CDC is astonishing.  And this is just the list of US diseases.  What if this tick had been overseas?  I can picture it now.  Me laying and rotting in a hospital bed, with God-knows-what hooked up to me, more wires and lines attached to me than a super computer.  There I am in a hospital bed surrounded by flowers as I struggle for my last floral scented breath. 

                Scroll, scroll, scroll.  Okay, okay.  It says here that you can remove the tick.  Maybe there is hope for me after all.  WikiHow is saying something about nail polish.  Like maybe it’s supposed to help or get rid of the b*****d? 

                Nail polish, nail polish.  There it is.  Carolina blue with a glitter finish.  I start lathering the hell out of this tick.  There.  Now that looks amazing.  The tick still seems to be attached. 

                WikiHow also said something about petroleum jelly.  Well I just so happen to have a jar of that lying around here somewhere.  There it is.  I stick my hand in the slimy, snotty, substance and lather up the tick with the slop.  Well look at that.  The glittery nail polish now appears murky, buried underneath the mound of slop.  I grab a paper towel and smear the mound.  Maybe I should mix the nail polish with the jelly?   Now I have glittery Carolina blue jelly sliding overtop the smooth and slightly soft previously brown raised bump.  Hmmm, the tick still seems to be attached. 

                How could I be so silly?  I should have read further down.  WikiHow mentions it right here.  HEAT!  Definitely heat.  I feverishly root through the kitchen drunk drawer and pull out an old, beat-up pack of matches.  I grab one of the 3 remaining matches and prepare to burn the sucker off.  I strike the match and hold it up to the bump.  That smooth, brown, raised and slightly soft bump covered in glittery Carolina blue petroleum jelly.  The jelly snuffs the match the second it gets close enough to provide any heat source.  I grab the crème brulee torch off from the 3^rd shelf kitchen cabinet.  This should provide a steady enough source of heat.  The scent of singed hair permeates my nostrils from the hair surrounding the crime scene of my arm.  Ouch.  Even with scorched, sizzling hairs the tick still seems to be attached.  Really thought the pyrotechnic show would do it.

                So I grab my phone and consult the great Dr. Google.  I can barely even read the screen now with all this scorched glittery Carolina blue petroleum jelly smeared across the screen.  I wipe it on my shorts.  That just made it worse.  I throw the phone down and grab my tablet instead. 

                Dr. Google says, “Avoid folklore remedies such as "painting" the tick with nail polish or petroleum jelly, or using heat to make the tick detach from the skin. This can actually cause the tick to burrow deeper.  Your goal is to remove the tick as quickly as possible--not wait for it to detach.”  Well Dr. Google thanks.  Really should have stuck with Webmd instead of WikiHow.  I just wasted 15 minutes and made a terrible mess for nothing.  But that’s my bad. 

                There seems to be a diagram shown here on google images involving tweezers.  It shows the tweezers grabbing at the base of the tick and pulling up slowly.  It emphasizes not crushing the tick and making sure that the head is removed.  So I grab the tweezers and place them directly at the base of the bump that is brown and smooth and slightly raised but covered in scorched glittery Carolina blue petroleum jelly.  And I pull and pull, yanking at my sizzled skin, but nothing happens.  I grit my teeth and pull even harder, slowing tearing my skin.  I place my forearm on the ground and anchor it to the floor with my foot.  Pinching, pulling, prodding.  Finally it releases as I fall backwards to the floor.  S**t, that is a lot of blood.  Bright red blood starts pouring down the side of my arm.  Crimson blood mixed with glittery Carolina blue nail polish mixed with petroleum jelly.  A steady drip, like a leaky faucet begins striking the kitchen floor.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  I inspect the contents pinched within the arms of the tweezer.  There appears to be small leg-like tendrils all around the base but it is difficult to see through all the slop and blood.  I do not see the head.  Hell, I must have left the head in my arm.  I can feel it burrowing deeper and deeper through my arm, munching on my flesh as it continues its bloodlust journey. 

                I grab a paring knife from the kitchen drawer and start carving, deep into the flesh, through muscle and vessels and tendons.  My fingers are barely holding the knife handle through all the blood.  I grab a dishtowel rag to wrap around the handle of the knife.  I don’t want to slip and risk not removing the entire head.  I grab a wooden kitchen spoon and place it between my teeth to muffle my screams as I carve.  This is going to hurt like a b***h but there is no time to numb the pain with ice.  I am 100% focused.  The blood picks up speed as my heart races with frustration.  It starts pulsing and pounding as it continues to pour from the wound.  I dig and dig, sweat pouring down the side of my face, tears welling up in my eyes, blurring my vision.  Suddenly, I’m sprayed in the face, painting the wall behind me.  I swear I’m starting to look like something straight out of Dexter when he does his blood splatter analysis.  Except, I don’t have any amount of plastic prepared for this disaster.  Cherry red continuously mists the white kitchen walls behind my head.  A steady, pulsing beat, like my tiny artery is at a techno rave and needs to keep the beat.  The steady drip on the floor has escalated from a small pool to a moat, providing a barrier to trap me in this hell.             

                Where is that stupid tablet?  I need to consult the great Dr. Google and fast.  I’m starting to get woozy here.  There it is.  Duh, I completely forgot the tourniquet.  I rip the belt from around my waste and I synch it down tighter and tighter, just proximal to the elbow like it shows in the diagram.  The bleeding slows to a trickle, buying me some time.  I continue to cut and carve through flesh, deeper and deeper still, a steady sort of screwing carving motion, almost as if I’m screwing this paring knife into a wine cork.  Finally, I see what I think is the head of the tick.  Man that sucker was really embedded in there.  One final sweeping cut with the knife and I got it.  I pull up the tip of my knife to inspect it and there it is.  Or is it?  Let me step into the light.  Hmmm, that really feels too soft and flesh-like.  I look down at my arm again and I am literally looking directly at my blood splattered kitchen floor.  I have completely carved all the way through my arm.    

                I reach for my tablet, grab it, and slip on one of the jelly-like clotted areas of blood and fall to the floor.  As I hit the ground I smack the corner of the tablet, cracking the screen.  My precious Dr. Google.  I can’t use my tablet.  My phone’s screen is still smeared and unreadable.  I am at a loss.  I guess it’s off to UrgentCare.  Maybe one of those ‘doctors’ in the flesh won’t be completely useless for once.  I can always inform them on what I have read from Dr. Google or even bring up a site for them to help them patch up my forearm.

                I hit the highway with the gas pedal smashed to the floor.  I still have the tourniquet in place while the rest of my ruby red drenched forearm flecked with glittery Carolina blue is wrapped with the closest thing I could find, Saranwrap.  The b*****d tick is sitting next to me in a little clear ziplock sandwich bag so I can get some conformation as to what satanic breed of tick it is and why it was burrowed so deep into my arm.  I finally make it to UrgentCare and after check-in and a 30-minute wait a doctor can see me.

                The ‘doctor’ arrives in the room with a toothful, sardonic grin plastered all over his smug face.  This is no Dr. Google.  I question his competence.  “What do we have here,” he exclaims.  He throws on some gloves and lifts my arm up to get a better look.  He’s studying the scorched glittery Carolina blue petroleum jelly rimmed hole through a layer of Saranwrap.

                “You see I had a tick, and I know Dr. Google said it was important to get the head, so I was just wanted to make sure I got all of the head.” 

                “Well I’m sure you certainly did,” say the smug “‘doctor’”.  This nobody “‘doctor”’.  I can see the judging look on his face.  He is still smiling.  This is a very serious matter and he is smiling.

                I hand him the ziplock bag.  “Can you tell me what satanic breed of tick this is and confirm whether or not I have contracted one of those “osis” diseases?  I can bring up a list of those diseases for you from Dr. Google.  But I’m going to have to borrow your phone as mine is currently out of commission.”

                “Well Ma’am, your arm is going to require reconstruction.  The good news, you don’t have to worry about contracting any tick-borne diseases.  This is a melanocytic nevus, commonly referred to as a mole.”

Author's Note

This is constantly being reworked. Looking for any feedback

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

Brilliant! Very funny description. I started to get a feeling of deja vu and it turned out to be well founded. I also tried to remove a tic to find out it was a mole - on my scrotum- and boy did it bleed!
Alan