One day, just last century, I was walking by the news stand when I scanned the front page headlines, which read, “Fifteen-year-old student ‘discovers’ that one of her kidneys has ‘disappeared…’ Apparently, during a surgery operation performed in 1988 at a Sao Paulo capital hospital.”
“Darling, where’s other the kidney that was here?”
“O gato…”
Now now, it wasn’t the cat. I know very well that the word gato has other meanings. It connotes to agility, surreptitious or stealthy acts. It connotes, for those who don’t know, to organized crime like stealing and robbery; maybe even professional mafia activity…
“I was robbed yesterday. The jumped the fence at home and took my plasma TV.”
“I was robbed too. They opened up my belly and nabbed my liver…”
“You need to be more careful! One of these days it’ll be your heart!”
What section are we in anyway, humor or police activity?
So, basically, a high-level professional, under the Hippocratic oath and the whole ten yards is capable of committing grand larceny, scalpel in hand, by criminally invading the health and life of an innocent child? Do we even still need to get around to the stray bullets and violent traffic?
* * *
I confess I ‘m pretty concerned. I may still need surgery. Haven’t chosen which one yet. Maybe the extraction of three ingrown wisdom teeth. Maybe that little lump pestering my left auditory meatus. Or maybe that mush starting to form around the cartilage along the pharynx. Perhaps that inguinal hernia, already promoted to peach size and on its way to avocado status. Or the torn ligaments in my right ankle from a little spill in the shower last year. Maybe…
And this question just keeps getting more and more dubious, as the news spreading around the hospital isn’t of the most favorable. It appears that my body has been reduced to the category of “organ bank.” When I walk into the clinic and I look to the other side of the glass walls, the surgeon gazes over his eyeglasses and sees: two lungs, two kidneys, two corneas and…hmmm… the liver of a genuine teetotaler…
As strange as it may seem, my body has become the object of medical acrimony. I’m scared to death that one day I may have a sudden fainting spell and when I wake up I’m hanging on a meat hook with price tags all over me: thigh, tenderloin, chuck steak, ribs…
* * *
– Mom, I’m going out!
Take care dear! And remember, steer clear of strangers. They’re out there looking for retina donors…
And there she goes, strolling down the avenue; little Lucimaria. She only has one kidney now. And judging by the face of her little guardian angel, she won’t do anything careless… Or else she might just lose the other one.
God forbid!
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