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Post-Modern Drunk: Teen Wolf Stu
My grandparents didn't leave me much in their will. My physical inheritance amounts to a stamp collection that seems pretty worthless, and about 20 silver dollars worth a little over $100 the last time I had them appraised. I'm okay with that, though. I never expected to retire on the wealth of my ancestors.
The legacy I didn't expect, however, and I wish they hadn't left me, is a legacy of disease. My grandmother had lupus, and passed that down to me. It's what she died from, in fact. To be technical, she was suffering from lupus, and the treatment involved steroids to suppress her immune system, and she died from the pneumonia.
And my grandfather suffered from lycanthropy, which he also died from. To be technical, he was suffering from lycanthropy, which turned him into a werewolf at every full moon, and he died from a group of people from his small North Dakota town, armed with pitchforks and melted down silver dollars loaded into revolvers.
This is my legacy. These are my diseases.
I'm new to suffering from lupus, so I'm not sure entirely what it entails. In general, I get to live a normal life, but it also means that every once in awhile (the frequency is different for everybody), I will suffer from "flares." The flare is the only time I suffer from symptoms of lupus: aching joints, a distinctive "butterfly" rash on my face, anemia, and low white blood cells.
I'm not as new to suffering from lycanthropy; it's pretty clear what it entails. Every month or so, by the light of the full moon, I transform into a werewolf that's a danger to myself and all around me. I will suffer from "werewolfism." The symptoms are: transforming into a man-wolf, a distinctive wolfish visage on my face, feral bloodlust, and low white blood cells.
These are my curses. Lupus can be treated, as I mentioned, with steroids to suppress the immune system, along with anti-malarial drugs to treat the swollen joints. Painkillers are helpful to treat the pain. Lycanthropy, on the other hand, has no cure beyond a vulnerability to weapons made of silver.
Neither of these disease are a joke. Lupus hospitalized me for over two months, because of complications due to the steroids. Lycanthropy, while it allowed me to lead our high school basketball team to victory, puts my family in horrible danger.
Despite it meaning that Jason Bateman played me in a movie about my life, being a werewolf is not all fun and basketball games. It is both a blessing and a curse. A heightened sense of smell wreak havoc upon you while in a high school. Your classmates sometimes don't shower before coming to school, or skip out on showering after gym, or compensate by wearing clouds of perfume or cologne. Being stuck in a classroom with one of these people can play murder on your heightened wolf sinuses. This isn't even taking into account the monthly transformation into a rabid feral creature, which is murder on your social life as a teenager. Not to mention the transformation into a wolf destroying my Zubaz and Jordache wardrobe.
This is my inheritance. This is my curse.
