21st century festering wounds - sextus

The results were in, the experiments were done. We had found that in Samuel Vespucci's cells, several genes were somehow lowered in their expression. And for whatever reason, all of these genes were lying in a straight row on the X Chromosome.

But which gene was to blame for this strange malady?

I could not figure it out.

I surveyed the list of genes that came up as strange on the gene chip, with no strong clues.

However, as my eyes scanned neighboring genes, the picture became clear to me. The proverbial moment of clarity is sometimes depicted as a light bulb going off, and I had had times in my life when it seemed like I had grasped the experience of a true epiphany. But that was all washed away in comparison to this moment.

For at the moment, the bulbs flashed, the scales fell from my eyes, all of these metaphorical bursts of epiphany were true at the same time.

WASP!!! WASP!!! WASP is not expressed properly in Samuel!!!

I could not stop shouting and screaming the word WASP, as my colleagues looked at me with befuddled jaws gaping.

"Come on, you don't know WASP? It even has a wikipedia entry on it. Look it up as Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, not the insect or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.....This is it!!!!" The gene wasn't on the list that we got from our experiment, but it was wedged right between some of the other genes that we found on the X-chromosome. It was as clear as day to me now, but not to my student.

Who could blame these poor cellular biologists, whose worlds revolved around Dictyostelium discoideum, the slime mold that spends most of its time as a single cell? Studying this molecule in such an organism is not as logical as studying the other molecules that we prefer to work on, but as far as humans go, WASP is definitely worth studying. Humans who lack this gene completely develop serious diseases, and many times this manifests itself by problems with, yes, clotting.

My graduate student and her friends from the lab next door listened to my tirade as they looked up more info on WASP, and I knew what I had to do to bring about a change. I was sure I could save Sam. I just needed to get to him in time.

21st century festering wounds - cinco

I have been involved with science as boss or worker for 17 years now.

Some days have passed leisurely, because a big paper from my group had come out and I knew that was a guarantee that I'd make the next promotion or get the next grant. At other times I was unable to sleep before I heard whether our latest hypothesis could be backed up with reliable data. Naturally, this was especially true when funding was bad.

But all of that was rubbish compared to this current matter matter of Samuel Vespucci. With every passing hour I was so thankful to the gods or Buddha or the blind forces determined by Newton and friends that I was not an MD.

To be a medical doctor would have caused me to die of a heart attack or some other stress-induced malady. There's something about my mind that makes me able to project my mind into the body of someone in pain. Call it extreme empathy, or whatever you call it, it was so unsettling for me to have seen Sam have another break in the bacterial colony that had spread from his leg back into his bloodstream.

My good friend Dr. Kim was handling that with severe treatments reserved generally for cancer patients--small molecules called "cytokines" were added to Sam's i.v. that provoked his immune system to get to work and kill the bacteria had bought Sam some time, but we all knew that if he lost consciousness, he would be gone. The DNR was signed and none of his family could convince him otherwise.

And so I got to the lab a bit earlier than usual, and hoped we could find something.

As it happened, my graduate student Karen had already been working on analyzing the genes from Sam.

To do this, we used some powerful technology where every gene in the body can be identified in terms of whether it was turned on or turned off. This was done using a small chip, hence the name gene chip.

She was sitting at the computer with a frown. Turning to me, she said, "I'm sorry Andrew, but I think our gene chip has a problem. If you look at all of the genes, they are all pretty consistent between the healthy patient sample, but it seems like a bunch are a bit lower in expression. I think there was some sort of a smudge on the chip that made Sam's cells look like genes were turned off."


"Yeah, but all we have to do is look at the chip and see if that's true. And what do you mean, a bunch? And didn't you run replicates to be sure things like this didn't mess up your experiment?"

"Oh yes, yes, of course", she replied somewhat defensively. I had trained her well enough to do this but things seemed so odd that I had to ask.

"Ok, well, can I see this list of genes, and see what you mean?"
There were over 30,000 genes in the study, and they were listed in terms of how much they were expressed.

This was the list on the screen that she showed me that day:
ELK1
SSX9
ERAS
KCND1
GRIPAP1
GAGE4
LOC729422


In every instance, Samuel's cells had for some reason lowered the amount of expression of these genes. It was like those genes were somehow muted compared to cells from you or me.

"So Karen, you think these chips, which run several thousand dollars for each one, were all smudged in the same spot?? Come to think of it, where are those genes on the chip? Are they even in a row????"


"Hm.....let me see." She took the list of genes and organized them based on where they were on the little chip, and suddenly the grouping was lost.

It was then that we realized that those genes weren't in a row on the piece of plastic used to measure them.

"Wait a minute--I'm going about this all backwards....what if you sorted based on location in the human genome?"

With a few clicks and a few more seconds, we realized what was wrong----
The chip wasn't broken, affecting the genes in one row---to our shock, the genes were all in a row, if you looked at where they actually were on one part of one chromosome.

High Koo's --------- j

how soft your embrace
so anxious to meet anew
and stay in your sight

how soft your embrace
the treasure that changed my life
by ending my life

it has been too long
so anxious to meet anew
each second endless

i'll do all i can
to make you smile, never turn
and stay in your sight

High Koo's -------- i

measure resentment
pound by pound it buries you
and spits on your grave

measure resentment
in the way you won't reveal
the hollow inside

the weight has a toll
pound by pound it buries you
suffocates your breath

eulogy of shame
he tells your life as it's not
and spits on your grave

High Koo's ------- h

cold distance between
the span of my fingers and
your lonely gazes

cold distance between
a heart might not see at all
but sense what is lost

i'd call your face close
the span of my fingers and
the fear that lingers

i remember how
we looked away and turned to
your lonely gazes

High Koo's ------ g

pour out a prayer
screaming silent in your arms
yes, your soft reply

pour out a prayer
and wait for what he answers
hope no matter what

trials of my patience
screaming silent in your arms
i can't wait anymore

why do they suffer?
is justice merely unseen?
yes, your soft reply

High Koo's ----- f

a trace of your care
will not sustain this poor child
you left while i cried

a trace of your care
leaves my heart waiting for you
i need your return

the feigned harmony
will not sustain this poor child
he craves a real hope

you won't stay i know
i can't stand to say goodbye
you left while i cried

High Koo's ---- e

vices do not halt
as selfish plots will thicken
and his schemes unfold

vices do not halt
affairs rise as the soul dies
he has sold his self

the mire tastes so good
as selfish plots will thicken
the day grows darker

nightfall hides his hate
the lies are told to gain lust
and his schemes unfold

High Koo's --- d

her smile is enough
to melt me when i'm frozen
awaken this heart

her smile is enough
soothing the deepest anguish
bringing this sweet joy

dawn, come to bring life
to melt me when i'm frozen
crush my last goodbye

stuck in this late eve
with no strength i am drowning
awaken this heart

High Koo's -- c

anchor it fast child
you never can let it slip
then will peril flee

anchor it fast child
before the times grow hard
don't lose hope again

the cycle turns on
you can never let it slip
await the day of strength

growing to full strength
the youth prevails to flourish
then will peril flee

High Koo's-a

soft you swindle me
grasping for the one to come
homesick i leave home

soft you swindle me
the flatters crush my sight
as pride ends this life

broke the iron gates
grasping for the one to come
this fire won't be stopped

the porch light was cold
speaking pages in silence
homesick i leave home

High Koo's - b

my tears have all dried
waiting for the night to come
you could not answer

my tears have all dried
and left the stain to smoulder
i hid them, each one

i bundle my hopes
waiting for the night to come
but dawn seems so far

i will always knock
pleading reason for your heart
you could not answer

high koo's -- prefatory address

I wrote these about 10 years ago, but I post them now because someone quizzed me about my poetry, asking me if I knew the author. I realized he had a copy of one of my epic poems that I will refrain from posting here (or elsewhere).

At any rate, these haikus were written at Koo's Cafe, though never performed there or anything approaching such levels of pretension. I had a lot of fun using repetition to provide structure and establish an overall theme in each one. Enjoy or don't, but I'll at least feel nostalgic.

Nominative No-Nos

One grammatical error that really bothers me is the abuse of the nominative.

Oh the accusative--that precious jewel neglected by so many youth in favor of that noxious nominative.


As young children, most of us were taught that we were wrong to say things like,



"Me and Joey want to play Nintendo, mom!"

or even worse

"Why can't me and him play Nintendo, mom?"

[Parenthetically, every time I remember how much time I spent playing Nintendo/Commodore/Apple games, I make a mental note to be more lenient.]


Clearly those sentences are grammatically grotesque, and so we were taught to say,

"Joey and I want to play Nintendo, mom!"

and

"Why can't he and I play Nintendo, mom?"


This was a great rule to make sure the nominative is used when it is supposed to be used, but of course that raises another question:

What is this elusive nominative; that word that I've been abusing in its own right, as a means to bother you who have forgotten or never learned it?

Put simply, it is the form of a pronoun that is the subject of a sentence. Put even more simply, when you have words like I/me and he/him, we see that both I and me and he and him refer to the same person.

In these two sentences, we see what is intuitive to most of us:

I hate him.
He hates me.

In the top sentence I am doing the hating, while in the bottom he is.

Thus, I and he indicate those that are the subject, indicating them to be nominative pronouns.


Perhaps it is the egocentrism of a child's mind that puts themselves as the subject of every sentence, but as a general rule, saying "he and I" is correct as long as you and this fictitious he are the subject. But if you are the object, our amiable amateur the accusative approaches the arsenal.


For the accusative case means just the opposite--it comprises the object of the sentence.

Returning to our small sentences, "him" and "me" refer to those who are being hated in the two sentences, so "him" and "me" make up the object of the sentence, which we call the accusative case.


So as children, our teachers were right to tell us to not say "me and Joe", as long as this counsel was specific to a situation where "I" was the subject. But if the sentence is about "me", of course we should have used "me"!

Unfortunately, we understood the fear of the accusative as some sort of immutable law, and we ended up neglecting poor Mr. Accusative.

How does this manifest itself? I'll put a quote from a friend's blog, that shows how we can turn our grammar minds off for fear of offending the overly simplistic teacher/parent that taught us to never neglect the nominative.

"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of he and i that was taken when he was a little over a year old."


Now I'm sure this particular friend would not make this error all of the time, and it was probably a mistake which slipped out due to busyness etc., but the point is that this mistake slips out quite frequently among many modern Americans. I would argue that this is due to a primordial fear of using "him" "me" when conjoined to another pronoun. Maybe it also comes from a fear of being branded an uncultured individual, clasping a Coors saying, "Me and him done loved that NASCAR race!", but that is another layer worthy of considerations at some other point in the space-time continuum.





At any rate, here's another way to challenge one's grammar, which I am sure is familiar to some:
If we take the errant sentence and isolate the two pronouns, the error becomes much easier to see.

Keeping the first pronoun we have:
"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of he that was taken when he was a little over a year old."

Keeping the second pronoun we have:
"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of i that was taken when he was a little over a year old."


None of us would ever use the nominative in place of the accusative when it's just one word on its own, and I would argue that this is because we were drilled so thoroughly on the specific matter of how to avoid the accusative.



So let us all shake our primordial fears and embrace "me and him" as we should.

That's what me and him said about I and he, at least.



I kid, I kid (though mostly to myself).

21st century festering wounds-IV

Samuel Vespucci walked out of my door to use the restroom. I was still puzzled over the apparent disconnect between what I had told him, that I was confident we'd be able to find a cure for his festering wound, and how he had responded to such a claim. What was wrong?

I for one would be happy to hear that there was a new way to possibly cure me. But then again I'd never had more than a broken nose, so what did I know of true illness?

I thought I had done the typical scientist thing of using too much jargon, but then again, I said things as simply as possible.

Suddenly I realized something else was amiss, when I heard another crashing sound in the halls. Samuel had fallen to the ground and was clutching at his wounded thigh.

With words that I dare not repeat for fear that some day an innocent tongue would see these words that I write and be as blemished as a "sailor" like myself felt, he belted out cries of anguish. It was horrible.

My hands fluttered and fumbled as I started dialing on my cellular phone for Dr. Kim. Fortunately, another professor in the department was an M.D./Ph.D., and she came to the rescue while we waited for an ambulance.

I was not permitted to board, so I got into my car and followed.
"So this is what ambulance chasers do."

As I arrived I parked in a visitor lot but had no patience to get my parking permit from the kiosk. I proceeded inside to try to find Sam, and maybe my friend Dr. Greg Kim.

Dr. Kim was there to meet me.

"Hey Greg-how is Sam?"

He looked at me with the sort of a smile that only a doctor could produce at a time like this. Sincerely processed to ensure maximal comfort, he said, "We're doing everything we can, and I hope that means he will stabilize. But I'm not ready to state that that is the prognosis. How are things on your end?"

"Um, about that, I just got the samples today. He dropped them off and then a few minutes later he fell to the ground. So, no, no progress yet."


"Well, Drew, you can go in and see Mr. Vespucci."

I entered the isolation room in the ER, and while conscious, Sam looked even feebler than before, almost childlike.

"Hey Andrew, looks like I got to your office too late. I thought you were like House MD--that guy and his cronies usually start by thinking they cured the patient and then realizing they were wrong. You didn't even get a chance to be wrong."

I tried not to frown, but realized I was cringing. "I know, Sam, I know. Just hang in there. It's not too late for us to make a breakthrough."

I tried to muster words that would frame a convincing argument, but as my countenance greyed with doubt, Sam interjected.

"I've signed it, Andrew. The DNR--do not resuscitate. If I go under one more time, I don't want to come back up. I've come too close to death too many times to have hope that this won't be just another palliative treatment. You know that word, right?"

It was familiar to me, but having focused on cellular biology I could not place its exact definition. As my mind searched, Vespucci began chanting a rote quote, apparently from the dictionary.

"PALLIATIVE: ALLEVIATING PAIN AND SYMPTOMS WITHOUT ELIMINATING THE CAUSE." The words were so bitterly recited that I couldn't help but feel pity in a new way. What I thought pity before at times such as funerals was no longer pity to me. That emotion was merely a bit of smug sentimentality. This new depth of sorrow was something I had never experienced, and would forever more be pity to me.

He went on, "That's all this is, you hear me? And if that's all you can do, I don't need you people."

His face cringed into a look reminiscent of a fearful animal, as he broke into tears, and at that moment, I could not blame him.

All that I could do was hope to save him.

The original Sopranos?

I recently finished The Winter of Our Discontent, one of John Steinbeck's last novels.

For all of its alleged (but unproven) literary faults, in terms of rambling soliloquies and other venial scribal sins [which actually put a timeliness and reality to the narrative, but I'm digressing again], the way morality is treated puts a striking parallel between this work and my favorite 21st century program, The Sopranos.

Of course, this is not to say that these are both gangster stories--instead, I am speaking on a deeper level of the moral themes--how morality is perceived and practiced, and how we as the observers are left scratching our heads as to whether we want to root for a given character, or whether we hope they get it.

Even superficially, there is the character of Alfio Marullo, whose Italian background leads people to question whether he is "connected". Even deeper, Marullo's integrity is ambiguous. Is he noble man, or is he not?

There is the East Coast town-nestled on the Atlantic Ocean, I am reminded of the Sopranos again, because the portrayal of the area used to seem so foreign to me as a Californian. Now in my Maryland-soaked life, the pages and screens are more alive than ever.

Then we have the actual protagonist, Ethan Hawley-in some senses he is a nobody, but in other senses he is American royalty. The friction between these two realities leads to a universally American portrayal of what it means to succeed in this country.

And as the Sopranos ends, so too does this novel.


But, since one of my few readers is a Steinbeck fan who has yet to read this, I will say no more.

21st century festering wounds-tertius

I was sitting in a seminar watching a new researcher present their findings. Clumsily, sloppily, forgetting the background and assuming we all cared about every detail this person was working on, I did what I always dreamed of doing--I blurted out and screamed, "What is your problem?!?!? Do you think we really care about your meaningless experiments that will probably never even be published???"

He looked at me, lips quivering because he knew I would be evaluating his performance at his Ph.D. defense, and started to cry.

Suddenly I was standing on a beach with the head of the lab that competes directly with me, and she softly whispered, "It's ok--we'll get off this island some day. I'm sure our loved ones are doing everything they can to find us."

Twelve minutes after hitting the ground, I awoke to find my senior graduate student standing over me, repeating my name. My hopes of silencing the bothersome chatter of an annoying student, and my fears of being stranded with my scientific archenemy were all that--dreams, nightmares, aspirations, and worries. Where was I? Oh yes, back in the office, dealing with the wound that would not heal itself.

Poor Samuel Vespucci was speechless, but not as unnerved as I had been from hitting the ground. Regaining my equilibrium was difficult but manageable. To think, I hadn't even seen the wound whose smell had knocked me off of my feet! It was then that I realized that another aspect of my personality that had kept me from medical school; that is, that seeing real people in pain was far too much for me to tolerate. It's much better to speculate about death and disease on the molecular level, after all.

Nonetheless, I apologized for such the interruption, and took as deep of a breath as possible as to feel calm, without imbibing the strong stench of the wound.

"Mr. Vespucci. You must forgive my weakness. I see you are carrying a styrofoam box. Presumably this contains the biopsies of your cells and the bacteria that are growing around them?"

He nodded, hands still trembling, and set the box on my desk. I did not fall to the ground this time. No, the excitement of starting a project that would put my knowledge of the cell to use had me as giddy as a schoolboy, or so the saying goes. Personally, I was never giddy as a schoolboy, but that is another story.

"OK, Mr. Vespucci--we have everything we need to get this search started. Our goal here is to identify any cellular or genetic anomalies that may underlie....sorry sorry sorry, I do that all of the time with laypeople. This is what we are going to do, Sam. We can tell when a cell looks strange, and we can tell when a gene looks strange. If anything is the matter, we are the ones to find it. I know exactly what a happy healthy clot should look like, and all of the cells that work on building that clot. We don't know who is not doing their job, but when we get to it, we will. You hang in there, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Now, do you have any questions?"


"Yes, um, where is the bathroom?"

With that he left, and for some reason, it was clear that he did not share my enthusiasm about the chance to find out what was wrong.

Using "while" to contrast things

Well, my grammar-minded amigos, I am glad to say that I'm back with some food for thought on the English language.

I've been quite busy trying to employ it in my trade, and have found myself quite lacking in what is needed to succeed.

One vignette worth sharing is the use of the word "while".

I was writing about different things that I discovered in my research, and when I wanted to compare two scenarios, I often would choose to write "while".

To give a mock example:

"While test tube A was blue, test tube B was green."

What I have learned is that this is verboten, as while denotes a chronological perspective.

Thus, one should abstain from "while" when making contrasts. "In contrast" works to replace it, but if the two scenarios are not so opposed to each other, "whereas" will also suffice.

So put the "while" down while you are writing contrasts!!!

21st century festering wounds-part the second

I live the typically atypical life of a scientist. Focused on a few molecules out of the staggering myriads that comprise life as we know it, I delight in connecting minutiae to diseases and the minions that deal them to the innocent and the guilty alike. Because of my delight in unraveling such mysteries, my path crossed Samuel Vespucci's one unusually cold summer day.

As I said before, Samuel was getting tired of the same unsettling procedure of having his leg wound literally scrubbed clean. He wasn't sure if he could take another treatment, but was not quite suicidal enough to let apathy take its course.

Because of this unending anguish and frustration with the status quo, it was then that he came to me.

I was working on my latest grant and faxing yet another form regarding my newest publication, when a human came to the door.

"Who could this be? Too old to be one of my students, too young {and definitely too poor} to be a rich codger with goodwill and a plan to donate our institution money." I thought this and similar thoughts to myself, and then noticed a strange gaping curve going into one of the man's legs.

With the graceless demeanor you would expect from someone in my profession, I continued mulling the possibilities over as he stared at me blankly.

Suddenly, it hit me. My latest attempt to connect my work on the bricks that make up a cell (called cytoskeletal proteins by nerds like me) to human diseases was staring me in the face! I remembered a strange e-mail I had received from a friend from college. Gregory Kim had gone on the road towards success, and saw the light that somehow flew past me by enrolling in medical school. Instead of slogging away for little pay, studying an organism that most people have never heard of--have YOU heard of Dictyostelium discoideum???----Greg was helping people directly, and being paid far more directly than I was as a junior faculty at an albeit prestigious institution.



And this was important to me on that cool summer day because I remembered Greg was part of the team that was baffled and befuddled by our friend Samuel Vespucci.

He had contacted me because I had been the guy to go to when a problem was strange. Call me a real-life House, M.D., without the limp, but when a zany answer was needed to solve an even zanier problem, I had a knack for finding the right answers. Perhaps that is why I opted to take the lower paycheck and stick with science.

"Andrew, you've got to drop everything you've got--we have a case unlike any other. Persistent infection with no signs of healing. Laceration was eaten away into a subinguinal..........."---Greg's frenzied voice called me one morning a few weeks ago, telling me all about Samuel's condition. He described the case in more detail, but it would sound like repetitive drivel to the non-clinician, so I will spare you the gory and droll details.
"Look Andrew, I'll e-mail you a reminder, but you've just GOT to see this Vespucci case for yourself."


All of these experiences of my youth, career choices, and current dedication to try to solve this mystery were playing and replaying in my head, as suddenly the world went back into focus and I remembered where I was---standing in my office on a cold summer day, starting at Samuel. As I began to introduce myself, the smell from Samuel's wound introduced itself to me.


It was then that I instantly vomited and lost consciousness.

21st century festering wounds

Samuel Vespucci walked into his doctor's office. Dreading yet another visit but knowing he would die if he missed his appointment, he tapped his feet anxiously in the waiting room.

Despite the fear, there was a methodical feeling to the occasion. He knew the drill by heart now. So rote, but so unbelievably searing, like each time in the past, he filled out the forms. Sure, this time they were 20 minutes late, but the same sights and smells pervaded the room.

And when I bring up smells, I should state here and state it clear: the air was putrid with decay. For you see, Samuel was suffering from a persistent bacterial infection. Only a scientist like myself could call out loudly and say, "Yep, that is E. Coli!", with a twisted trill of triumph in my voice.

Believe, me, that's my usual response when I smell bacteria. However, when I met him some weeks after this hospital visit, there was something more pressing to first note and then subsequently cast as far out of my mind as conceivable, and that was because of the way the air was heavy with the aroma of death.

But, as usual, I am getting ahead of myself. For my role does not enter this story at this point in the space-time continuum.

He walked into the doctor's office, let the nurse measure his blood pressure and take other vitals. Same as it ever was, nothing was wrong, except for the huge pus-filled gash in his body. Of course, that meant that everything was wrong.

Prone to sepsis, Mr. Vespucci clung between the precipice of relative health and fevers full of sweat and delusional dreams that could only be dispelled by extreme doses of antibiotics.

He had had 4 near death experiences, and the fevers kept spiking dangerously close to temperatures that could damage his mind. But things had changed; the situation was even worse.

Uncomfortable in his gown, Mr. Vespucci's attending doctor finally entered the waiting room. Sweat dripping from his brow as he anticipated the inevitable, Samuel felt even more disturbed watching the young resident look back and forth from the charts.

"Um, yeah...Mr. Vespucci, I am Doctor Rothfuchs. It's a pleasure to finally meet you--I see from your file that you are suffering from persistent bacterial infections with significant subinguinal lymph node involvement. As you well know, clonotypic analysis of this particular strain has revealed a fascinating mutation in the large ribosomal subunit of your E. Coli, which renders this specific isolate impervious to any sort of antibiotic-based therapeutic. I hear we may name this subspecies E. Coli Vespucciensis, and it may lead to our hospital being mentioned on the news!"

But that was neither here nor there to one dying man. It was the procedure, and the procedure alone that carried any value to Sam Vespucci.

"Yes, yes, I have heard this all before. Please spare me the details," grumbled Sam. "Let's get on to the treatment."

"Ok, yes, fine, fine--I have never seen your wound before. Can you lift up your gown so that I can begin the procedure?"

The resident's voice wavered in pitch, tone, and rhythm, as Sam's arm reached to open the bottom part of his gown. Removing a makeshift bandage revealed that across the outside part of his right thigh was a seven inch gash in the shape of an oval. It was 2 inches deep, and resembled a stagnant pond covered in a film of moss. Only this film was no green goop---it was a macabre mixture of pus, bacteria, and blood.

Overwhelmed, Dr. Rothfuchs staggered back, and stifled the desire to cough as he looked away and sighed deeply. Of course, sighing deeply was the last thing he needed, as the smell of the wound wafted even more strongly with the wound exposed.


"Sorry, sorry. I had tried to prepare myself, but it was more than I had expected. I am really hopeful that this is the last round of this therapy."

Of course, Sam wasn't--and he had heard other residents say the thing enough times to know that to be dubious.

And with that, Dr. Rothfuchs proceeded to open a large pouchlike bag, which contained a jar of bluish fluid and a large contraption that resembled a q-tip, except for the fact that it was 2 feet long.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but this is the only way we can kill this strain of bacteria."

While Sam Vespucci and Dr. Rothfuchs knew what was coming, a person who was unlucky enough to have stumbled upon this procedure would have been incredulous that such a treatment was considered humane in the 21st century.

Sam had laid himself down on the examining table, hands feverishly gripping the sides, as Dr. Rothfuchs washed the wound with the blue fluid (which was a combination of soaps and alcohols) and dug deep into the wound with the large swab. He grit his teeth as the procedure went on, and some 15 minutes later, the cleaning apparatus was filth laden, while Mr. Vespucci's leg resembled your garden variety red seen at the butcher's market. Dr. Rothfuchs lay a new set of gauze on the wound, taped it up, and shook Sam's hand. He was pale, had shed some tears, but was still breathing. After all, this was the 12th time he had had this procedure performed.



"I really wish there could be some way for this wound to resolve and heal so that we could stop this regimen, but for whatever reason it looks just as fresh as it did on the day of your accident. Of course, our research department is still looking into all possible mutations that could have arisen. As you may know, Mr. Vespucci, this is a difficult search, as hundreds of genes and many cell types are essential for the coordinated process of wound healing. From fibroblasts to fibrinogen......"----but Dr. Rothfuchs was cut short.

"Listen Doc, you have to understand---if this doesn't get better within a few months, I just, I mean, I don't know if I can take it much longer." Hobbling out of the room, Samuel Vespucci said goodbye to the familiar faces, but could not look his familiar pain in the face.