My head has been itchy since week 1 in Honduras. Originally I thought it was because we didn't have excess water, so we could only shower twice a week…even if all we were doing was manual labor. Later, when the itchiness didn't go away, I thought maybe I just wasn't scrubbing my scalp enough to get all the dust and dirt off (Honduras is duuuuussssty). So I started really going at it- scrubbing with all my might.
Still itchy.
So I asked Emma, our resident nurse on O Squad, if she would check my head for lice. And, graciously (as well as after a few well-aimed puns), she accepted the challenge. And what did she find?! Nothing. No lice, just a dry scalp.
Dry scalp! Excellent! I can do a deep conditioning treatment and it will turn out great! So I did.
Again. Nothing.
Still just as itchy and, now, annoying as well. Whatever. Let's just move on.
Enter Month 2. We're on the beach in El Salvador for debrief, and I'm getting sand, just, everywhere. Including my hair and scalp! I now think my head is itchy because I have sand all up in there.
Week 2 we're in Apastepeque with our awesome host, doing awesome stuff, and my head is getting worse. And continues to do so. It's now week 3 here, and it's no longer just itchy, it's burn-y and painful. ALL the time, not just when I scratch. It's to the point where I feel gross, I mean REALLY unclean ALL the time. And I feel pain, again, all the time. Further, I now have these itchy little bumps running down the sides of my neck and the backs of my ears. I had my squad leader Kat look at my head last night, and she said there were all these tiny red circles around these tiny bumps, and some of them were like open sores. Gross.
And itchy.
My squad leaders were heading to the doctor this morning to take care of one of their phsyical ailments and I, being curious and also driven mad by itchi-osity, invited myself along to finally get this taken care of by a medical professional. If deep conditioning treatments, scalp massages, and hats to protect from sunlight weren't going to make this pest go away, surely a doctor could do it.
We hit up three different clinics looking for a doctor who speaks English and we finally find one. Kat and I head in to his office together, and he diagnoses Kat perfectly within minutes. When he listens to my story and checks out my head and neck, he struggles to find words.
"I think you have, like…little insects, maybe? I forget the name…let me look it up."
I am DYING. Little insects….nay, little parasites, are living in my body. I should probably just go ahead and sign myself up for that Monsters Living Inside Me show- you know, that one where people travel to third world countries and somehow accidentally invite killer, liver-eating, intestines-drinking worms to live inside them. This is what is happening in my head while I'm waiting for him to look up the kind of parasite he's searching for- the one that would inevitably end my life by eating my brains through my scalp.
"Leeces? Lice? Yes."
"What? But I've been checked twice for lice and nothing's been found!"
"I don't think the bugs are there anymore. I think they have all gone, but you just have the bug bites."
Wait a minute. So…lice…who make their permanent homes in someone's hair until they are killed by RID, took a little nibble of my head and then traveled on to more exotic places? And isn't "lice" super-duper contagious? No one else on my team or my squad has had any issues at all, and I have slept face-to-face and back-to-back with numerous girls for nearly two months now… Not to mention all the hugs and cuddle time I participate in (I'm a "touch" person). There's no way this is correct information.
I relay all these conspiracy theories back to Kat when we are once again in the waiting room and she agrees with me. "I don't think he really meant lice, but maybe some sort of bug or parasite like it. Lice don't leave on their own."
This makes me feel a ton better. Although, now I'm paying for a doctor's visit that ended with no new or helpful information, and I'm buying two prescriptions for medicine that may or may not make the itching stop. I am super grateful that prescriptions in third world countries are not nearly as expensive as in the states. However, now I'm in a precarious situation financially. Not bing able to earn any money or deposit any money in my bank account to cover bills at home when unexpected things come up and I have to withdraw more money than expected.
So lessons learned:
~ask someone to donate to your personal account before you leave for unexpected expenses
~be really thankful for the American medical process while you have it- American doctors are really, really, really well trained
~be really thankful for your health in general. Be really, really thankful
~be aware that parasites live in the world. They're gonna git ya. It's okay
~be aware that insects live in the world. They're gonna git ya. It's okay
~be thankful for teammates/squadmates/squad leaders who go to the doctor with you. It makes a boring/hot/potentially scary/uncomfortable situation a little more bearable
