“What? Spider bites? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Are you questioning my medical opinion?”
“I am if you’re trying to tell me that these wretched open sores are caused by spider bites. Come on, sir, this has to be something else.”
“No. It isn’t. It’s spider bites, nothing more. I know you’re probably not used to the conditions down here, but I can tell you straight away that those are most definitely spider bites.”
“Fine,” I said. I had no choice but to accept the confident verdict of my new friend Doctor Dumbass. “Give me something for the spider bites, and I’ll be on my way.”
At this point, I was willing to try anything he was willing to prescribe. You could have chopped up a Children’s Chewable Tylenol and I would have snorted it off a rusty nail if it promised to relieve one second of my agony. What he gave me were some tiny spider bite pills and a bullshit topical powder that was probably just baby powder with a fancy arachnid label taped on the bottle.
Two useless hours after I got there, off I went in a short-sleeved T-shirt, certain of only one thing: I didn’t have fucking spider bites. When I got back to the barracks, the rest of my platoon was getting their gear ready for another field exercise. It was the first time most of them had seen my sores, and they all looked at me like I was an extra on The Walking Dead. Trey walked over to me and sat down.
“Jesus, man, you all right?” he said
“No, I’m in a lot of fucking pain, and their diagnosis was just stellar.”
“What did they say it was?”
“Spider bites. Can you believe that shit?”
As luck would have it, one of my buddies who was a 3/75 Ranger medic—I’ll call him Jones—happened to walk by and overhear us. “Who the fuck told you those were spider bites?”
“The physician’s assistant.”
“Bullshit, spider bites,” Jones said. “That’s one of the most horrific cases of bullous impetigo I have ever seen. You better go back and see him before you lose a limb.”
“I fucking knew it wasn’t spider bites!” I said. “Motherfucker!”
If you don’t know what bullous impetigo is, congratulate yourself and never, ever Google it. Let me give you the WebMD synopsis instead: Bullous impetigo creates a bunch of pus-filled sores all over your arms, legs, and back that start in the moist areas of your body (which, during Florida Phase, is all the areas of your body) and then burst open like grilled cherry tomatoes, only to scab over and leave scars roughly the size and shape of a car cigarette lighter. Still turned on? Keep reading!
The only way to limit the spread of the sores is to avoid scratching them or abrading them too much so they won’t ulcerate prematurely. I managed to avoid scratching them, but there was nothing I could do about abrasion since my uniform was soaking wet twenty hours out of the day, effectively becoming a uniform-shaped kitchen sponge with the scrubby side facing inward.
“Hang on,” Jones said. “Before you go back, I got something that will give you some immediate relief. I’m sure you’re feeling some kind of hell right now.”
“Spider bites hurt, ha.” If I didn’t laugh at the horror show dancing down my arms, I’d only be able to scream and rage.
He walked over to his bag, God bless him, and gave me a tube of steroid cream. The second I applied it, it felt like someone had just put a fire out on my skin. It was the most pain-free I had been since the first day I noticed the sores. I was so grateful to that observant, kind-hearted Ranger medic that I would have sucked his dick in front of everyone in that room. Balls too.
Feeling the medicine take hold, I started making my way back to Medical to find that physician’s assistant and get this diagnosed correctly so I could heal properly. When I walked in to speak with him, I could already tell that my presence was unwelcome.
“Excuse me, sir, earlier you gave me the wrong diagnosis. You said I had spider bites and prescribed me medication for that—”
“What I diagnosed you with is exactly what you have,” he said sternly.
“No, it isn’t. I have bullous impetigo. It’s not spider bites. I just need the proper prescription for that.”
“Who the fuck told you that you have bullous impetigo?”
“One of my buddies is a Ranger medic, and he’s seen this before. He also gave me this topical steroid cream to put on. It’s really helping with the pain and swelling.”
“So let me get this straight, someone else not only diagnosed you but gave you a non-prescribed medication that you used illegally?”
“I wouldn’t say illegally. He’s a medic, and he had some in his bag.”
“Were you or were you not given prescribed medication that was not in your name, and did you or did you not use it?” he said, raising his voice.
“Yes, but he was only trying to help.”
“What’s his fucking name? I’m going to report him, too. He should fucking know better.”
“I don’t remember his name. He was just passing by.”
“Bullshit. You just said he was your buddy. Give me his name.”
“Again, I don’t really know him. We’re all kind of buddies out here, am I right?” I said, trying to defuse the situation.
“I ought to have you kicked out and medically discharged for something like this. Do you know how serious this is?”
“Sir, I just want to graduate and be done with this. I don’t give a shit who made the right call here. What I’m trying to express to you is that I need your help. Can you please give me the correct prescription, sir? That’s all I want.”
After a couple minutes, the guy cooled off as I became more frustrated. I didn’t want something so stupid as a misdiagnosis for spider bites in a goddamn swampland to end my military career. Of all the shit to get kicked out of Ranger Battalion for, this would have ranked right up there as one of the dumbest of all time. I can’t even imagine what my brothers would have said.
Finally, the physician’s assistant gave me a steroid booster shot in the ass, a shot of penicillin, and another tub of topical steroid cream and sent me on my way. I think he could genuinely see the pain in my eyes and how much I desperately just wanted to get better.
I also think he could see that if he got me booted out of Ranger School for this, I would have killed him.
Eventually, the treatment regimen did the trick, but not before 80 percent of the sores burst, leaving dozens of scars on my arms, back, and sides. Then, to add insult to injury, Trey ended up graduating Florida Phase as honor graduate and I got recycled back to the beginning of it. There is nothing more quintessentially Army than having to crawl back through the same shit swamps that infected you with the flesh-eating bacteria that was the reason you had to recycle in the first place.