Some of you may have read Fred’s recent post about a nightmare encounter with a slow, writhing maggot which had elected residence in his upper arm. He tried to elicit my sympathy and concern at the time, but I must admit that apart from suggesting a plethora of creams and lotions from my vast (but invariably expired) first aid kit, I wasn’t wildly alarmed.
You see, I’d had my own all-absorbing selection of unusual African ailments recently, starting with some kind of travelling fungus that went from my thigh to my arm to the inside of my nose (making it swell up and redden in a caricature of drunkenness, and causing much hilarity at work), and finally to my eye where it died a slow and ugly death (slow, protracted swelling followed by explosion of white puss – hey I warned you!).
So when Fred came home with his tale of writhing maggots I was mildly relieved that the episode was over, but thought little more of it. What I didn’t do was immediately instruct our trusted housekeeper to turn up the iron and blast our clothes with it. And that’s why today you find me utterly unable to sit down without a shot of excruciating pain running up my spine, followed by a dull, throbbing soreness in parts of my body whose existence I never consciously acknowledged before.
Yes, that’s right, my own personal (and clearly intellectually superior) maggot has elected as its favoured place of residence…the soft, cushiony flesh of my left bum cheek.
Picture from www.afpmb.org/pubs/Field_Guide/field_guide.htm
Now you’d think that between the research Fred did, his own experience, and the comments left by various friendly souls on his post, I’d be able to zap the beast quite effortlessly. Ha, but this bugger is particularly resilient! So far he’s survived smothering by Vaseline twice (all I got for my efforts was a baffled, hurt look from our churchgoing housekeeper when she saw the Vaseline pot on my bedside table yesterday morning), drowning in 90o rubbing alcohol, suffocation with cello tape, and two different people trying to squeeze it out with varying degrees of violence.
To the point where I’m beginning to wonder if there really is a live organism in there at all, or if my aggressive administrations have simply turned what was a harmless boil or cyst into a swollen, throbbing, angry, red, infection. All I can say is OUCH! So my question is, are tumbu flies meant to hurt this much?
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