Blood Poisoning
By Ryan C.

This happened wayback in the summer of 1997.
My girlfriend then Joy T, and one of her friends - Dillon Y, had drove out to ye olde Ellicott City. It was a Sunday. We polished off a bottle of Captain Morgan on a roof somewhere. Then we went to the Pheonix Emporium to get really ripped. After that we clambered down to the little stream running through old E.C. The cops eventually showed up so we had to leave. I had fallen down several times and had a bloody elbow.
I went back to Weber's Farm of Parkville where I was living and working as a farmboy. On Monday afternoon I was moving around bales of hay for the haymaze. My left arm starting hurting like shit whenever I picked up something, so I knocked off early, had a couple beers, and went to sleep around 8pm. I woke up around midnight covered in sweat. I was sweating out of the palms of my hands, the surface of my eyeballs felt sweaty. I stumbled to the bathroom and grabbed the digital thermometer. I had a fever of 104.
After a sleepless night I went downstairs around 4am. Mr.Weber was up and I was supposed to drive the vantruck to market in Jessup. I told him "I think I'm to sick to go"- "like really damn sick." Mr. Weber was skeptical, but then I pulled my shirt half off - revealing a beautiful red streak, 3/4 inch wide, leading from my left elbow into my armpit and from there presumably into my heart and bloodstream in general. He said "holy crap" and told me to get to a doctor.
So i called Joy up and she came and got me around 8am. My fever was 105. We went to St. Joseph's in Towson but they wouldn't take me because I had no insurance. So we went out to Columbia where my parents G.P. was. I told the receptionist what was up and he saw me immediately. Dr. Ross wanted me to go to HoCo general to get an IV of antibiotics. I told him about the insurance problem and he just said "oh shit." He ended up giving me a bunch of sample sheets of Augmenten, told me to take ten of big fuckers today, and five every day after for a week. He then eyed me up a final time and said "stay in bed, and no drinking."
By this point Joy was doing and signing and listening to everything for me because I was effectively tripping. I kept tripping for two more days until on Thursday evening my fever broke and went down to 101. I was staying at Joy's house and people kept on coming over to look at my arm and talk to me because it was really funny. So stay out of suspicious streams that might have been sewers.