Thursday, January 19, 2006
Human Soup
Tiarra the Supernurse came by today, and as usual she fascinated me with tales of the darker side of human physiology. We discussed maggots and leaches and their purpose in the promotion of healing. We talked about gangrene infested feet she's seen was hanging on by a mere thread of sinew . We touched on the regeneration of nerves after an injury - such as sledding down the hill in the back yard and landing on a harpoon of a tree stump - offends them. We threw around several variations of parasite. And then I remembered a story I heard about 15 years ago. I cannot verify the specifics, but a long, long time ago, before medical waste was considered gross and disgusting (like we ALL know it IS), back when the hospital was called Framingham Union, Learneds Pond was a pseudonym for Human Soup. It was rumored that all things eviscerated, punctured, drained and snipped ended up in the sweet little pond behind the hospital, where many townsfolk sent their children for swimming lessons. They say it's clean now, safe to swim in up until August when the geese have tipped the balance of water/shit in their gooey white favor and flagellating pin worms ripple the surface in search of warm blood. But I think any pond that can choke up an army of patchwork humans from a hundred years of careless doctors throwing discarded body parts out the window is not EVER safe to swim in. Just my two cents.
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5 comments:
I had never heard that one!
Did you know theiemergency room phone number was 1 number different from the one I had growing up?
14 year old me: "Hello?"
Starnger on phone: "I think my mother is having a heart attack!"
Me: "Call 911! Not me!" and I hung up.
That was just one of many phone calls we used to get... another was "I can't find my daughter... is she there?"
Scary stuff.
Love the description in this piece, Big Mama.
Of course, I'm a little frightened at the things you think about, but we'll discuss that later. ;)
Most hospitals I've known of would dispose of humans parts with fire....but that's just how my grandmother always told the stories....
I'm sure that's how they do it. But you just gotta hint around to a couple of livers floating in a pond and I'm outta there. I really did see those worms...slithering and twitching around gnashing their sharp little worm fangs just waiting for me to get in the water.
I LIVE ON LEARNED POND AND ITS VERY CLEAN. I DONT KNOW WHAT IDIOT DECIDED TO BUILD A HOSPITAL ON A NICE POND BUT PERHAPS THAT PERSON ENDED UP AS FISH FOOD TOO !!
PERHAPS THATS WHY THE BASS ARE PRETTY BIG !!
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