Tim Manley

My rheumatologist felt otherwise.

She felt around a lot of my arms.

She cut out a big chunk of my leg.

Not a big, a little piece of my leg, I should clarify.

And it wasn't that crazy.

And she explained that the...

You know, the skin tells you a lot about what's going on beneath it, that it's sort of like the communicator between the inside of your body and the outside world.

She also told me that I had this rare thing called cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa.

Right?

Totally.

Seen the Buzzfeed article about it.

It's an inflammation of the blood vessels, but only in the skin.

And she said that I was actually very lucky that it was only in the skin, because if it moved to my internal organs, which sometimes it did, it was often fatal.

And I asked her, how often does that happen?

And she replied, very casually, there's not enough research.

I'm like, all right, well.

And she gave me a prescription for a medication that's usually used to treat gout in the elderly.

On my way home, I passed by the drugstore, and for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to go in and get it filled.

Instead, I went home, and I worked for a long time on an email to Ben, which, of course, I couldn't send when I was done.

All the words seemed cliche.