“The Secret Doctors of NASA” is a series of memoirs, diaries, and reports from actual doctors employed by an undisclosed arm of NASA between 1970 and 2001. These writings contain true accounts of the unusual and often highly-classified medical conditions experienced by astronauts during and after their space missions. Following the defunding of the clandestine medical program after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the majority of these accounts were left, forgotten, on tape drives in a NASA storage facility. In 2016, a former intern, whose job was to clean out one of these facilities, discovered them. Two years later, he is ready to release what he found.
Releaser’s note: This account is from a post-surgery oral memoir dictated by an unnamed surgeon to an anonymous NASA official. The background circumstances are unknown.
A Surgeon’s Nightmare
Look, I’d been awake for two straight days. You guys have been putting us through hell with all the injuries from the Hephaestus Project, so forgive me if my results weren’t as great as they could have been. But come the hell on – what do you expect when someone comes to me in that condition?
So you want to know what happened in my own words? Fine. But don’t get pissed when I call your practices into question.
The patient was admitted with significant injuries to his legs, torso, arms, and head. On the surface, they appeared to be lacerations, which was strange because their severity would have caused near-instantaneous exsanguination and they would’ve gone straight to the morgue, not to me. Closer inspection revealed the wounds had been sealed by intense cold, as if the patient had been frozen either while being injured or immediately after. He was still clinging to life.
Our new house was an old house. We spent tons of money on renovations and upgrades before we could live there. The basement was particularly heinous. After a while, it started coming around, looking less like the pit of despair from when we bought it and more like the man-cave I dreamed of. Once everything was done, we finally moved in.
One of the kids was poking around in her closet the other day and discovered an old dumbwaiter. I never knew we had one of those. It led down into the basement, but apparently the compartment had been bricked up before we even moved in. When setting up my man-cave down there, I just plastered over the brick like any of the other walls.
My daughter was pretty disappointed when I told her I wasn’t going to break down the wall and make the thing functional again. She wanted to send me little presents from her room while I was watching the game in the basement. Still, she liked hanging out in her closet and pulling the thing up and down. I figured there were worse things she could find interesting. Continue reading “Dumbwaiter”
For the last month, I’d been pestering Mason to come with me to explore the old mine outside town. It was one of those places everyone said was haunted. You know the type. Of course, most places like that have scary legends to keep people away so the goth kids can go and fuck one another in peace. There was nothing really haunted about those spots, of course. This mine, though, kept even the goths at bay.
There were so many rumors about why the mine was haunted and downright dangerous. Some said it used to be a government uranium mine during the Manhattan Project and you’d get irradiated the minute you set foot inside. Others claimed that after the Civil War, town officials had used the place to secretly imprison and torture freed slaves whose vengeful ghosts would kill anyone foolish enough to explore. Even though there was no evidence for any of that, folks still insisted it was too dangerous to visit. It had grown to become a town legend. People were told never to go in, so they stayed away. Continue reading “The Old Mine Outside Town”
Everyone loved Regina’s raspberry jam. No one could get enough of it, either. As fast as Regina could produce it, it’d get bought up and consumed within the first couple days. No matter what she did, demand always outpaced supply.
From the moment that one popular food blogger mentioned her jam, Regina was inundated with orders. Something about the jam was extraordinary. No one could quite put their finger on it, either. People even went so far as to investigate the suppliers of the raspberries to see if they were selling Regina something special, like a hybrid variety or something. Nope. Just regular, organic berries. They were high quality, but nothing you couldn’t find at a Whole Foods or another high-end retailer. Continue reading “Regina’s Raspberry Jam”
Their pale faces were tilted skyward. Each pair of eyes brimmed with hope. In the moonlight, their skin seemed luminous; a battle of bright flesh against the surrounding darkness. Their mouths were slightly open, as if expecting to receive holy communion. They stood in a circle on the mossy ground, hand in hand. Their open throats drooled blood down their young chests.
Under my bare feet, the moss felt so comforting. So inviting. With the children standing guard, I would curl up on the ground and fall asleep.
My trouble started when I realized I was out of razorblades and waxing supplies and my crotch looked like the Amazon rainforest before the mechanization of the logging industry. My date was due to arrive in half an hour. So, I resorted something unconventional. Something, I now realize, was not the best idea.
I’m going to give a little backstory first. I’m not ashamed to say I enjoy sex. The widespread belief that a woman should suppress her sex drive because society finds it “improper” has always disgusted me. Sex is great. Safe sex is wonderful. I respect myself and I respect the men I sleep with. All I ask is that I receive the same respect in return. It’s just two people making each other happy.
Now, I’ve known this since I was fifteen. Two decades of positive experiences have only strengthened my feelings on the subject. That said, there are a few personal responsibilities I feel I have, such as keeping current with the shaving trends. I’m not a huge fan of the concept behind shaving myself, to be honest. If you think about it, it’s actually kind of creepy, but I’ll still admit I enjoy the sensation of hairlessness. I guess it’s a tradeoff.
I prefer to shave, but I’ve waxed myself a lot, too. I have to be careful, though, because I’m allergic to some of the waxes on the market. I don’t know what particular chemical or fragrance it is that causes the irritation, but the itchy rash it produces keeps the downstairs out of business for over a week while it clears up. No one wants to pull off a thong and see that staring them in the face.
So, back to the other day. I found something in the apartment I thought would work like wax, so I tried it out. It hurt like hell and was an absolute bitch to wash off, but it did the job. My date arrived when he said he would. We hit it off at dinner and we ended up back at my apartment, where we both managed to achieve orgasm despite being so full from our meals that we were like two beached whales slapping against one another. Since we both had to get up early the next morning, we said our goodnights and he went home.
The itching woke me up before dawn. It started with my armpits, but then moved to my, if I may use the medical terms, box and asshole. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. The mirror confirmed my assumption: that damn allergic reaction again. Welts were forming in extremely sensitive areas and it looked like I was already getting a bunch of ingrown hairs. I braced myself and doused the affected areas in rubbing alcohol, hoping none of the ingrowns would get infected. I showered and scrubbed, then went back to bed. I still itched.
When I got up to shower, the swelling looked pretty nasty and the ingrowns, despite my best efforts, were starting to get whiteheads. I got up and left for work. I sat in my cubicle feeling utterly miserable. The itching was way worse than any of the reactions I’d had before. When I got up to use the bathroom, I checked the damage.
I almost threw up. A nearly perfect triangle of densely-clustered whiteheads occupied the entire area I’d waxed. Even worse, and this is going to be gross but there’s no real way to talk around it, they’d been popping the whole time I was sitting at my desk. My underwear was soaked.
After cleaning myself up as best I could, I talked to my boss and told her I needed to leave early. She said it was no problem, so I left and headed straight to the walk-in clinic.
I lucked out and got seen right away. The doctor raised her eyebrows to the ceiling when she saw the reaction I was having, but quickly reassured me that she sees people who get skin irritation from hair removal all the time. She gave me some kind of ointment to rub on it twice a day and said if it doesn’t improve in a week, she’d give me something stronger.
I cancelled the date I had with the nice guy from the other night. I felt pretty bad, but he was understanding. He said was that he had to go on a business trip the next day and would be gone for a week. I told him that I looked forward to his return, assuming a week from then I’d be in the clear.
Spoiler: I wasn’t.
I applied the ointment diligently for a few days and most of the whiteheads stopped appearing. The swelling, though, persisted. Same with the itching. My armpits weren’t particularly bad, but my, well, perineum, and the surrounding area, was a disaster area. It was super swollen and it hurt to walk and use the bathroom.
The other night, six days after I’d seen the doctor, the itching turned to flat-out pain. It wasn’t unbearable, and if it had been, I would’ve gone to the emergency room right away, but it was enough to keep me tossing and turning in bed. The clinic started seeing patients at 6am and I was planning to be the first person there when the doors opened.
As the night dragged on, I felt steadily-intensifying pressure on the affected area. It got bad. I scratched through my pajamas and felt small pops under my fingernails. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers were wet. I gagged. Off to the shower I went.
Because I like you guys, I’m not going to be as graphic as I could be. However, I can assure you this will be extraordinarily unpleasant to read. Before I jumped in the shower, I used my phone to take a quick picture of my perineal area. No, I won’t share it with you. But my God, I wish I hadn’t seen it. The small whiteheads in the area had clustered into a few very large ones. They bulged out of the skin almost half an inch and I knew right away that they were the cause of the pressure I was feeling.
I deleted the picture, got in the shower, and squeezed the biggest one as hard as I could. Its contents splattered on the floor of the bathtub like a pasty spitball. I watched as the water washed away the gooey parts. I bent down to look at what remained, screamed at the top of my lungs, threw on my clothes, and drove myself to the hospital.
Don’t worry, I’m going to be fine. I got to speak to a lot of specialists, though; lots of smart doctors whose curiosity was obvious. They kept me there for a few hours and cleaned up my crotch and armpits pretty thoroughly. Then I was discharged with a bunch of medications and tasked to share a bit of hard-learned advice. So here it is!
Always make sure the skin you’re about to remove hair from is clean. Be mindful of the sharpness of your razor when shaving, and if waxing, do your best to avoid any chemicals you might be sensitive to. Stay away from depilatory products that haven’t been evaluated by the FDA. This includes, but is not limited to, creams, lasers, and waxes.
Further, homemade depilatory products are discouraged. That was my mistake. Well, one of two. No one should ever, ever use flypaper for hair removal, especially flypaper that’s not right out of the box. This is because no matter how clean it looks or how meticulously you picked the flies out of their sticky confines, they may leave pieces behind. In my case, those pieces were eggs.
Keep in mind, I’d never even considered giving a ride to a stranger before. All my life, I’d been told that’s how you get killed. “Only crazies hitchhike,” they’d say. “They’ll cut your throat and steal your car and you’ll be dead in a ditch.”
I didn’t want to die in a ditch. And I liked my car. But after I’d left the gas station and I saw the poor guy sitting in the gutter on the I-95 onramp, feebly holding out his thumb, I made my choice. I’d be a good samaritan.
The storm in the distance looked pretty threatening. If I let that guy sit there, he’d have to bear the brunt of it. From the looks of him, he didn’t appear to be able to bear much at all. I pulled over to the side and rolled down the window.
“Where you looking to go?,” I asked him.
“Baltimore,” he replied. His voice was stronger than his sickly body had suggested, and that gave me pause. I looked him over again. Dirty jeans, baggy red t-shirt. No bag, no bulges in his pockets. I sighed.
“I can get you as far as Philly.” He nodded. “Hop in,” I told him, unlocking the door.
In he hopped.
“I’m Colin,” I said.
“Frank.”
We didn’t talk much for the first few miles, aside from me asking if he wanted some of the Fritos I had left from my lunch stop in Rhode Island. He took them and crunched away as I drove. He caught me studying him out of the corner of my eye a few times, but he didn’t say anything.
As the miles ticked away and rain started hitting the windshield, Frank fell asleep. The open bag of Fritos was on his lap. I wanted a couple, but didn’t want him to wake up thinking I was trying to grab his dick. I had absolutely no interest in his dick.
Frank snored like an orgasming Pratt and Whitney jet engine. In the confines of the car, since I had to close the windows once the rain had started, I noticed Frank had an unpleasant odor. Nothing overwhelming, but still obvious.
Over his snore, his stomach growled and burbled. “Gross,” I thought. Lightning flashed and wind buffeted the side of the car. The traffic ahead of us slowed to a crawl.
One of the annoying things about my car is the climate control only works properly when the car is moving. God knows why. The air conditioning we were enjoying up to that point cut out, and hot air started to blow out of the vents. The windshield began to fog up.
I cracked my window, hoping the outside air might clear the windshield. It did a bit, but visibility was terrible. The rain was heavy and my wipers weren’t doing a good job. All I could see was fog and the brake lights of the cars stopped in front of me. Frank’s stomach kept gurgling. I looked over. He was awake, staring straight ahead.
“You okay buddy,?” I asked. No response. He just stared at the fog-shrouded glass of the windshield. The smell I’d noticed before had intensified.
“Hey, Frank, what’s going on? You sick?”
Still nothing. Thick, humid air poured from the car’s vents despite the AC being set to max. Rain and small chunks of hail pelted the choked highway.
Frank retched. “Shit,” I said, and I frantically reached in the backseat for a bag or bucket or anything that might catch what I thought was about to come blasting out of my companion. My hand settled on one of the canvas shopping bags I used at Whole Foods. “God damn it,” I mumbled, as I placed my favorite shopping bag on Frank’s lap.
He moaned and turned to look at me, his eyes swimming back and forth with what I knew had to be intense nausea.
“Frank, please open the door and puke on the road or at least use the bag. I’m begging you.”
More silence punctuated by gurgling and retching. A boom of thunder caused us both to jump. For Frank, that was all it took. He didn’t open the door. And he didn’t aim for the bag.
A heavy wave of yellow vomit exploded out of his mouth and splashed against the windshield. I screamed. Another projectile torrent erupted from the man, dousing the ceiling, the dashboard, and the center console.
“Get out!,” I shrieked, the smell of the stomach contents invading my nose and threatening to force my own contribution to the mess. Frank sat back with his head down, pasty slime drooling from his mouth into the Fritos bag in his lap.
Cars behind me were leaning on their horns. The traffic in front of us had cleared. I poked at the hideousness on the console to turn on my emergency blinkers, then steered onto the median. On my right, I heard Frank choking. I got out of the car and stood in the rain, watching him. If you told me the following 30 seconds actually lasted 3 hours, I would’ve told you you were way off. It felt like a day.
Frank’s throat bulged as something was forced upward and into his mouth. I saw the something a second later. A colossal, writhing centipede as thick as my wrist began sliding out, its passage eased by the vile lubrication from minutes before. Inch after inch, foot after foot crawled out until it was free. It skittered under the passenger seat.
I’d already dialed the “9” in “911” when the solid matter entombed in his vomit began to move. Frank groaned and I distinctly heard him mutter, “not again.” As the rain soaked me, I watched as small centipedes crawled through the sludge all over the car, leaving trails as they went.
My dialing complete, I waited through seven rings before a dispatcher answered. As I told her about the medical emergency and tried to estimate where we were on the interstate, Frank abruptly opened the passenger-side door and stood on the side of the highway. He was gripping another massive centipede and pulling it out of his throat. I watched it bite his hand over and over until its two-foot length was exposed. Frank flung it into the dirt.
“Sorry about your car, man,” Frank called over the sound of rain and traffic. “I haven’t had an episode since I was a kid.”
I was speechless. I just looked at him as he walked down the side of the median, the torrential rain washing his clothes of the filth and bugs. And as centipedes crawled throughout my car and ropes of stomach contents dripped from its ceiling, Frank stuck out his thumb to flag down another potential ride to Baltimore.
