Life is rife with vicious vicissitudes that can annihilate your health at any moment. Perhaps an arthritic archer with an eye itch and bad aim will grievously puncture your pancreas. Maybe you’ll contract chlamydia or stub your love stump. Thankfully, medical professionals can assail whatever ails you with a barrage of unpronounceable drugs and magnificent machines. It might take a few needles or a few million dollars, but doctors and nurses help stave off hearses.

Unfortunately, the road to recovery has potholes. Healing can be halted by infections or anaphylactic reactions to treatment. Physicians occasionally encounter anomalous maladies. Sometimes surgery moonlights as medical torture. These various misfortunes teach the same sour lesson: No matter how bad things get, life can find ways to make them way worse.

Grunge