So after coming back from South America, I had about 3 days of chilling with friends and packing before I took off for 10 weeks or so to India (I was laid off, nothing better to do, so figured why not?). It was during this second trip that I fully realized all of the gifts South America had to offer, well, at least to me. Seems like I was due for one last parting memory. During my few days at home, I went to see my doctor because I had this bug bite on my upper right arm that didn't seem to be going away. She took one look at it and said there was no way that could have been a mosquito. Asked if maybe I had come across any spiders possibly. And the thing is, I don't think she realized how hard it was to keep track of the bugs in the jungle. I had done this jungle tour for 7 days, and seriously, throughout this time, there wasn't a moment when I wasn't being swarmed by an army of everything known to man. This one couple had actually bailed on the tour on the first day because they couldn't take it. Sure, I wore bug spray, and sure we slept under a mosquito net. But there was no possible way I could have really kept track of what I was being bitten by. So anyway, the doc gave me some antibiotics and cream. She would have liked to have seen me a week later, and was pretty concerned when I told her I'd be gone already.
Feb. 15, 2003
I did, though, get to experience the Indian medical system first hand today. That was exciting. Some of you might remember the insect bite on my arm? If I saw you after my South American trip, I'm sure I showed you. Especially if we happened to share a meal. Nothing like pulling a pus infected arm during dinner, eh? Well, it had seemed like it was getting better. Very, very slowly but still. I guess it wasn't though. Because yesterday, it started stinging and bleeding all over again. My mom swore she saw something crawling in and out of it, too. Maybe pus, she said, oozing out but then going back in for some reason. And then, displaying a sadistic tendency I hadn't realized she had, hoped they wouldn't start sawing on it without anesthetics.
The doctor at first didn't seem inclined to (use any anesthetics, I mean). He said it'd just take a minute. He'd just start slicing. There was already a hole there, after all. He'd just have to pull at it and make it bigger. But then he saw my face and suggested that maybe a local might work. I was a little freaked out when I walked into the operating room. The sheets were kind of dirty and the roomed smelled like urine. But the nurse when I asked assured me they used fresh needles and blades, so that helped a little. And really, they didn't give me much time to think about it. Basically, I went in. The doc looked at it. Said he'd have to cut it and did. My mom went back to her normal self as soon as we walked into the hospital room and started clutching my hand and moaning as if I were undergoing a life and death procedure of some sort. My aunt came with us and she's even worse. She told me to pray under my breath the whole time. Really, you'd have thought I was dying if you had walked into this room. To make matters worse, my mom refused to leave when the nurses asked her to. My aunt did but then kept trying to open the door and peer in the whole time. I couldn't really see what was going on because it's on the underside of my arm but my mom says he was hacking and poking into it quite a bit.
And then suddenly he pulls out something. And I couldn't tell you what it was. Some bug though. Maybe larvae. I think that's what my mom saw crawling in and out. My guess is that something bit me and laid an egg or something in my arm. And it's been growing ever since. And the reason it hurt only sometimes was because it was only moving around part of the time. Anyway, I'm sure y'all wanted to know the gory details, so there they are. :) They sent it off to the labs for testing so maybe they'll figure out what it is but I doubt it. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir but they said they wouldn't give it back. Ah well.
So the story didn't really end there. It was a long drawn out summer of visits to doctors in various Indian cities. At some point, they went back in to make sure they got everything and a part of the bug wasn't still left inside. I had this big lump in my arm after they cut it up which made them wonder if there was more. The second cut was bigger, so I got stitches. And now, I have this big ugly scar on my arm to show off at dinner parties.
Weeks later, after I sent this email to my friends, my friend Rob sent me a link to some information about the bot fly, which is what it seems I had. The botfly uses a host (usually mosquitoes which I'm sure they have no problem finding in the jungle) to take their eggs and deposit them in various places, including my skin, apparently. The little eggs burrow into the skin and hatch. The larvae grows inside and slowly worms its way out of the body. Finally when its fully grown, it burrows out, leaving a huge hole behind. I imagine that as painful as my arm was, it would have been a 100x more so if they hadn't taken it out. It didn't look like it was anywhere close to full size yet. Apparently the easier, less painful way to take it out is to put some vaseline in the area and wait with some tweezers for the bug to poke its head out. My mom did say she saw it oozing in and out. But really, then I would have missed out on my Indian hospital tour.
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