Three hours later, I was still waiting. The cast was being set, and I had moved on to blatant staring.
A very young looking doctor came out to speak with the family. Like the family members, I held my breath.
“Your husband will be fine.”
and exhaled.
“He was suffering from the initial stages of neurosyphilis which caused his mental confusion and incontinence. He’s a very lucky man that you brought him in. This could have been very, very serious.”
Neurosiphi-what? That sounded an awful lot like..
The daughter piped up, “doctor, what is neurosyphilis? It sounds an awful lot like…”
“Neurosyphilis is a very serious condition and happens when a person infected with syphilis lets it go untreated. Given the development of the infection, I’d say he was initially infected a good long while ago.”
“So, could he have gotten it from a blood transfusion. I mean I know the normal way syphilis spreads, but there have to be other ways..” the daughter trailed off.
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