I realized that they were all wearing lead protective coverings to protect them from the radiation. I’d just waltzed in wearing my usual scrubs.
I was petrified. I dropped the urine samples—the bottles shattered on the floor—and backed out. The technicians just stared at me.
After that happened, I developed an irrational fear that I had been exposed to radiation. The peril seemed to be everywhere. In my head it expanded into a general fear of contamination: any space, any surface could lead to infection or exposure.
As I went around the hospital on my rounds, I started having powerful compulsions to bathe. I would shower multiple times a day and scrub myself raw. I got a reputation among my colleagues: Threadgill, the one who’s prone to strip down anywhere and everywhere and start washing himself. When I couldn’t find a shower, I’d just use a sink. Nurses would come into unoccupied rooms and find me standing there half naked washing myself fanatically in a disturbing sort of St. Vitus’ dance. Then I began to store changes of clothes in various rooms around the hospital, like a squirrel burying nuts for the winter. I hid bars of soap and industrial-strength cleansers in cabinets in various room. I’d rush in and grab my supplies whenever the impulse came over me.
I’ve been wearing these scrubs for a whole hour, I’d think to myself. They could have picked up any number of germs as I interacted with patients and collected samples. I have to get out of these clothes right now! I’d duck into a room where I’d left a store of supplies. Once I was wheeling a patient somewhere on a gurney and the urge came over me so forcefully that I just left him lying there in the hallway while I fled to do one of my ritual cleanses.
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