Tabitha was coughing in her bed; apparently, I had given her the bug I'd been struggling with yesterday. "Sorry about that," I said as I got dressed. "If it helps, it seems to be a 24-hour thing. I'm going to the hospital for... something else; I'll be back as soon as I can." Not wanting any attention because of how I looked, I put on sunglasses and a mask; then, I went to the campus hospital.
As I filled out the information sheet, I looked around the waiting room. Just a couple of students, with the usual minor injuries; certainly nothing like what I was dealing with.
Finally, a nurse called me to come back. I stepped onto the scale, then let her measure my height. In the exam room, I explained what was happening to me as best I could; then, she took my temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart rate. That stuff was all normal, as opposed to my body.
When the nurse left, I pulled my mirror out of my purse. My eyelashes were drawn, and my lips were painted. Whatever this was, it was spreading.
The doctor came in. "Hello, I'm Dr. Blank," he said. "What seems to be the problem?"
"That's what I'd like to know, Doctor," I replied. "I had a bad cold yesterday; today, my eyes and the inside of my mouth look like they were painted, instead of flesh and blood. And it's spreading."
He checked me out. "Well, your eyes respond normally, despite their unusual appearance." He looked in my ears and nose. "The effect is noticeable within the ears and nostrils. Are you in any pain, discomfort?"
"Not at all. What's happening to me?"
"That, I don't know. I'm going to order some blood work done; maybe we'll get some idea from that."
And so I went to the lab. There, the lab tech found a good vein, and she drew my blood.
At least, she tried to. What came out of my arm and into the test tube didn't look like blood. "That's strange," she said. "I'm going to look at a sample under the microscope."
She put a drop on a tray, then looked through the microscope. "This doesn't have the cell structure of blood," she said. "It's all one fluid." She wrote a note. "I'm recommending that you be admitted, and I'm going to rush this test. Frankly, I've never seen anything like this."
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