Really? Are you sure?

They made me laugh out loud. It’s so strange how your evening can change course so rapidly, so unexpectedly. I went inside to get my keys and the cats looked at me with such yearning and angst that I thought, ‘ah, poor little things – I better feed them before I go’.

It was a new bag of cat food and as I took it out of the box, I worried about spiders. I lifted it very tentatively – ready to jump if something black and hairy appeared. When nothing did I felt quite relieved, and that was when I picked up the bag properly and the black scorpion hidden in the fold stung me on the soft skin between my thumb and first finger.

The first moment of pain was like a flash of light. I think I actually saw a flash of light. I did have the good sense to look to see what it was. Then I just swore loudly. It’s a shock! I mean obviously it’s a shock. But I mean really – I was very, very surprised by just how much it actually hurt.

I ran to the sink and plunged my hand into the cold water and then I just stood there. Swearing occasionally and then stopping to listen to the strange silence, only broken by the heartless cats trying to break in to the bag of cat food that I’d dropped on the floor.

Upon seeing the scorpion I had, of course, realised that I was about to experience an extortionate amount of pain. That’s all anyone ever says about scorpions – that you couldn’t imagine just how much it hurts. And you really can’t. It’s quite surreal. I stood there, observing myself and found I couldn’t fathom how anything could hurt quite this much. There are moments of clarity (and loud, fierce, bitter obscenities) then moments of, “really? Are you sure? This can't be real? Perhaps I’m going to wake up now?”

Then I started to think. How serious is a scorpion sting? Am I going to pass out soon? Because my house-mates (the human ones) won’t be home for hours. The clinic is 15 minutes away – do I need to leave now? What is going to happen when I take my hand out of this cold water? Can it, could it, actually hurt even worse that this? Is my arm going numb? Can I still move my hand? (I could – but didn’t do that again for a while – moving it hurts a lot more.)

I realised that I knew nothing about how bad or dangerous the scorpions are around here. I wondered how I could be so stupid to not ask something like that before now. I realised that I had to leave the house right now.

I didn't cry until I was outside and trying to get my shoes on - tieing my laces was agony. But I got it back together and soon I found my self stumbling up the road in the dark, holding my hand aloft like a torch. Self-control. It’s all about self-control. ‘Pain is just a feeling’ I kept repeating those words. I'm screaming inside. But I'm still walking, so I'm fine. Its just pain. Excruciating, unfathomable pain, washing over me like giant pacific waves. By the time I got to the first house I was drenched in cold sweat. I was quite surprised when I realised this, and quite alarmed when I realised I was light-headed.

I saw my neighbour in his yard. “Conoce escorpiones?” I asked called out (Do you know scorpions?)
“What?” he replied, walking over “what scorpion?”
“A small black scorpion” I replied, “It is dangerous? I need a doctor?”
He shone a light in my face “where? When?”
“About 10 minutes ago, here” I showed him my hand.
He said I needed a tourniquet; it took a while for me to understand that. He said I needed a machete. I mimed chopping my hand off and laughed. He smiled grimly and mimed cutting my tongue. I asked him “will I be ok?” I realised my tee shirt was soaked through with sweat. And it’s cold tonight. He said I should go to the clinic now. I left.

So I found myself stumbling down the road, light headed, sweating, my hair band tied tightly around my wrist, feeling bewildered and frankly amazed by how much pain I was in.

The doctor at the clinic said I would be fine. He offered anaesthetic. I asked “do I need it?” (I don’t use anaesthetics unless it’s an emergency – I had too many as a child). He said I didn’t actually need it. He told me the pain would wear off in a few hours. So I walked back to the bar.

Still drenched, still feeling quite surreal. They looked startled when I walked into the bar. “I’ve just been stung by a scorpion” I announced.
“Wow” said the bartender “you must be in so much pain”
“Yes” I said, choking back tears. I actually put my hand over my mouth and had to turn away for a second. I am proud to say I am not a woman who cries in public. “A beer please”

And so here I am, several beers and 2 hours later, sitting upstairs in the bar, letting the pain sweep through me like a warm summer breeze. It’s definitely not as bad as it was. Although I still can’t move my hand without great swathes of pain engulfing my head. It still feels quite surreal. I am typing this with one hand and trying to remember whether I locked the front door. Bizarrely, I am pretty sure I fed the cats before I left. Did I really do that? I think I did. The beer is certainly helping – as (strangely) is writing this.

There, but for the NHS, go I

I was born with a bone condition in my feet. Not that you’d know that – obviously I have some scarring from assorted operations, but aside from that there’s very little visible evidence. Perhaps I don’t walk as straight as some, but I am completely mobile and active. The bone condition I suffered from is serious and unusual. I have only encountered three other people in my life with the same condition.

The first one I barely remember, but my parents remember it very well. I was a small child, maybe three or four. At this stage I think I was still a bit wobbly and my feet were still a bit twisted, but the early operations had been successful and all was progressing well. The surgery I had was innovative: the night I was born there was an Orthopaedic Conference in progress at a nearby town. The Doctor on call realised what I had and contacted the hotel, he reached one of the country’s leading Orthopaedic surgeons and asked if he would be interested in my case. He was, and as a result the surgical treatment I received was second-to-none and somewhat experimental.

But I digress; one morning in the park my parents and I encountered another family, with a daughter just a few years older than me, with the same condition. She was in a wheel chair and had those big, ugly black boots that make me think of Oliver Twist. I remember being quite scared at the sight of her and running away to play. My Dad remembers standing there in tears as both sets of parents realised that I was walking and she would not.

In 2002 I was living in Honduras. I used to swim every morning before work and most mornings I would be accompanied by a little girl of about 11 years old. She was a great swimmer with a bright smile and after swimming I would often play water frisbee with her and her sister. I had known this child for more than a month before I saw her out of the water and saw her feet. They were twisted in and backwards; she walked, awkwardly and painfully, on the tops of her feet. She had the same condition as me.

Did she know somehow? Did she seek me out for some reason? It certainly felt like that. One Sunday I saw her picnicking with her family. It was her father who stood up to shake my hand, then looked at my feet, pointed at my scars, pointed at his daughter and said, nervously, "same same?" I nodded and the tears welled up in his eyes. In Spanish he asked, "free hospital?" I said yes. "Where from?" he asked. "Soy Inglesa" I replied. He nodded, there wasn’t much else to say.

I still live in the developing world and get frustrated when people describe it as some tropical paradise where life is ever-easy. Free medical care is a truly breath-taking concept for those that don’t have it. The fact that economic development has enabled certain states to be so rich they can provide it is frankly astonishing to most people here. They cannot imagine such a Utopia.

This morning on my way to work I passed a beggar. I think I may have walked past her before, but I am not sure. Today, just as I was passing she stood up and it was only then that I noticed her feet: twisted inwards and backwards. She had some doctored baseball gloves tied on to protect the tops of her feet as she walked. She was an old lady, tiny in a way that only a lifetime of malnutrition can cause. An obvious lack of even the most basic medical attention (splints) had left her knees and hips crooked as well. Her legs looked contorted and ill-made. She could walk, but the pain was obviously constant and severe. She had that absent look that so many long-term beggars and sufferers have. I gave her money and she thanked me, but she looked right through me. Should I have said something? In the end, what is there to say?

The War on Worms

Thank you all for the comments, emails and general concern about my worm. To answer your various questions:

• I did take a picture - but keep forgetting to upload it. I will do so soon.


• Yes, I have been to the doctor - I will start the medication tonight. First I have to sedate the worm and then tomorrow, I will poison it. I need to sedate it first so it doesn't get too erratic when it's poisoned. Apparently it can take up to a week to die.


• It hasn't moved much in the last day or so.


• The doctor thinks I probably got it from walking through dirty water.


• No, I haven't given him a name. However, after discussion last night a number of my friends have decided to call it William.

LATER! Here he is!

You probably don't want to know this, but

I have of late, wherefore I know not how, acquired a new friend – a close companion, one might say. It all started about two months ago when I developed a rash. I realise in these modern times that the rash usually follows the close companion, rather than precedes it – but in this case, I assure you, the rash came first.

It was not an alarming rash, just a small itchy patch on my foot. I’m afraid rashes (and skin fungi) are part of life when you work in the ocean (and you thought I had such a glamorous life), so I didn’t think too much of it. In fact, I still had some cream left over from the last rash, so I started applying – end of story.

Except, the rash didn’t go away. It occurred to me that perhaps I had not been dutiful enough about applying my cream; I also considered that I had been busy at work, and so in the water an awful lot. To be honest though, I only ever thought about it for a minute or so, and only every now and then.

But the rash was doing something! It was slowly spreading up my foot, towards my ankle. I say spreading... but actually it wasn’t getting any bigger, it was just moving. I mentioned this to a friend a few weeks ago; he made a scathing comment about not even being able to put cream on properly.

Last week I decided to stop bothering with the cream. It simply wasn’t working. I would experiment and see how ‘doing nothing’ worked out. The rash started getting a little smaller. "Aha!" I said! "Doing nothing works! I should do this more often!" Upon reflection, I thought that if I dedicated any more time towards ‘doing nothing’ I would be in danger of slipping into a coma, and so decided against it.

The rash, however, wasn’t going. It was getting smaller, but harder and more raised. It was condensing into a lump. Last night whilst watching TV I got fed up of it. I sterilised a needle and pierced the lump. Twice. Nothing came out. It was very unsatisfactory.

However, this morning whilst indulging in an early morning, absent-minded scratch, I noticed the lump had got smaller! "Aha!" I said in delight! (I am easily pleased) "The needle did work!"

Then I looked more carefully. It was true, the lump had got smaller, but it was also spreading again... well kind of... it was just longer... more stretched out...

Stretched out... oh! Then it dawned on me. A nasty slow realisation, like having a glass of very cold water, slowing dripped down the back of your neck. "It’s not a rash," I thought, "It’s a creature!"

It’s a worm. Poor bloody thing: that cream must have been driving it mad! It climbed all the way up to my ankle to get away from it. When I stopped putting the cream on, my little wormy friend probably curled up for a snooze. Only to be rudely awakened with a hot needle. Twice. Not surprising he’s decided to move on again. He’s on top of my foot now. Resting. And now that I realise what it is – I can quite clearly see his wormish shape just underneath the skin. I don’t know why I didn’t see him before. (By the way, I am aware that I am referring the worm as ‘he’. I am not sure why that is; I didn’t plan to do so – that’s just the way I wrote it. But I am sure it says something very depressing and negative about my psyche – and is probably connected in some significant way to the reason that I am nearly always single.)

I asked a Filipino friend this morning:
"Ronny," I said, "Are there worms that can get inside your skin around here?"
Ronny jumped and instinctively looked back over his shoulder in alarm. "Are there what?!" he said, with absolute horror.
"Look at this!" I showed him my foot. He laughed.
"Oh!" he said cheerfully "there is a worm inside your skin! My friend have one before."
"I thought so!" I said.
"You should put some cream on that" he said.

At the Clinic

I went to the Doctor last night [I've hurt my ears - boo.] The doctors here are excellent but the clinic is bereft: one tiny room which opens onto the street, in the corner there is screened cubicle for examinations. But other than that there's no privacy, no space, the patients sit on two benches, whilst the doctors sit on a plastic chair in front of them. We all listen to each others complaints and sometimes other patients will contribute their own thoughts on whatever ailment is being discussed. It is embarrassing and can be uncomfortable, but there is also a certain amount of solidarity between the sick!

On really busy days, the nurse will put a couple of plastic chairs on the pavement outside, where she will take blood pressure, etc, before the patient goes inside. Children often gather to watch.

Last night, however, there was only one other patient besides me: a little boy, about 7 years old, who had stepped on a Sea Urchin. It was awful - he was screaming. I don't mean frightened or frustrated screams... I mean real screams. Screams and sobs of pain and bewilderment. At one point he was shouting at his mother, who was also sobbing, I think he just couldn't grasp what was happening to him. I don't speak Tagalog, but I am pretty sure he was saying something like "make it stop".

An older lady, Grandma I expect, was also with them. When the mother couldn't cope anymore she stepped in to hold the boy still. He tried to fight her, to break free, but she silently gripped his wrists, whilst tears streamed down her impassive face.

The Doctor was very calm and patient, but I could see she was also becoming distressed by the situation. The little boys foot was starting to turn black and there were still spines to remove. He was getting more and more distressed, he was drenched in sweat, his hair sticking to his face, he eyes were becoming bloodshot and his distress was making it hard for him to breath. But the Doctor couldn't give him a break - the longer the spines stay in the more effect the poison will have.

In the street outside was a group of children - friends, brothers and sisters - silent brown faces with dark, round eyes. The littlest ones were trembling, but none of them ran away, they all stayed. There were others, people who had heard the screams as they walked by and stopped to see if they could help. The three women who run the food stall on the corner closed down and came and sat with the children. The nurses put some chairs out on the street and and a tiny girl, no more than three, curled up on a chair, sucking her thumb, with her other hand wrapped around her head, to shut out the noise.

My doctor, Jonas, grimaced at each new scream while we talked and he examined my ears. Before I left I asked about the little boy: "one more spine to go" he said and shrugged, "there's not really anything else we can do." I asked how frequent were Sea Urchin injuries. He said this was the ninth this month, but usually it's adults, "at least they understand" he said.

"Tonight," he gestured towards the boy and lowered his voice "only three spines. Two weeks ago, a man came in, I must remove 33 spines from his feet, it take more than 3 hours, " he shook his head sorrowfully, "but he will be OK.







The strange thing is, as a diver, I see Sea Urchins everyday. They are no threat to me: I am not standing on the bottom and they don't move [during the day]. I quite like them. They are pretty - often the colours are beautiful. I know they are poisonous and I always warn my customers not to touch them. But really I don't give them much thought. I think I'll see them differently now.