It was a dark night three years ago, during the first year of my residency. Myself and my co-resident, Dr. L, were alone in the resident room. It had been a quiet day and a suspiciously quiet evening. In the midst of the deafening silence, the pager went off. 

We called the number back to realize it was a new floor consult. The strange part was that they couldn’t give us a proper consult because they couldn’t explain what was going on. We grabbed any and all supplies available; ready for anything. We were optimistic and new but so self-assured that we could handle anything. 

We marched down to the floor to into the room to find the patient in bed with his feet … covered. 

The suspense killed us, but we were immediately hit with a smell quite unlike anything we had experienced before. We drew the sheets back and we saw what appeared to be something we could only describe as paws! 

It was two feet completely and totally covered in…

FUR! 

We thought to ourselves, we hit the jackpot; it must be a case of hypertrichosis, also known as werewolf syndrome! 

Following further inspection, we began to realize something was a little…off.

We tried to wade through the thick fur and began to realize that the fur was not his. 

He had continued stepping on his carpet which was covered in his animals’ fur over the previous weeks. He continued to do so, and the hair began getting matted to his skin. It was our responsibility to clean it all off. This revealed interdigital macerations, which was holding all the hair on his foot. We each grabbed a foot and went to work. 

To this day, it was the scariest task I had ever performed as a resident. 

Story by Dr. BS

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