I’m still trying to decide if by posting this blog, I am risking ALIENation from the entire human race, but I decided to go for it anyway, so here goes. Remember the Best-Vacation-Ever blog? We had such an amazing time in Belize that I just couldn’t bear to leave the place. Alas, I had to board the plane but NOT without making sure the country was EMBEDDED in my brain.
After 10 days of snorkeling, canopy tours, river trips and slothfulness, we arrived home tan, happy and mosquito-bitten. As we re-acclimated to our civilian life the memories of Belize faded but the mosquito bites persisted. Two weeks after returning home the itching had become tortuous. There were two bites on my scalp that itched so terribly I was sure I would be diagnosed with insanity-by-scratching syndrome.
Three weeks after returning, the bites on my legs were finally subsiding, but the scalp-bites were out of control. They had developed into full-blown boils. One night, Kirk was staring at me with a strange look on his face, and he said (carefully of course), “You look…different.” So I checked myself out in the mirror and sure enough, the bridge of my nose was swollen and my eyes were migrating in the direction of my temples (unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this phenomenon). It was late so I decided to sleep on it, but when I awoke the next morning the left side of my face was numb and I thought, “Okay this is getting weird”. I got up and went to work (that’s just how I roll, I don’t wanna hear it) but by the end of the day when I was still feeling like “Two-Face”, I decided I better visit the urgent-care.
With authority, the doctor said my bites had developed into a staph infection, but he did a culture just for good measure. “No problem,” said Dr. Urgent-Care. “Here’s a prescription for a really strong antibiotic. You’ll be fine in 10 days.” So I started taking the antibiotic (a horse-pill by the way). Ten days later, the swelling and numbness were gone, but the boils had started to ooze a clear brown liquid. (I warned this could get gross. Exit now if you have a weak stomach ‘cuz it’s gonna get a whole lot worse.)
The oozing brown liquid was actually a bit of a relief, because I assumed the boils were expelling the poison and soon my scalp would be good as new! The ooze only became a problem when it started dribbling down my forehead in the middle of a client meeting. THAT was a little embarrassing. After two weeks of oozing, I had taken to carrying a tissue everywhere I went in order to dab the dribble, but I finally had enough. My scalp had now been seeping for over two weeks , the boils were growing instead of shrinking, and I was absolutely certain I was losing brain-matter through the crater-holes that had now developed on top of the boils.
I returned to the urgent care center. “Not to worry,” said Dr. Urgent-Care. “Some staph infections are highly-resistant to antibiotics. We just need to give you a stronger pill.” He was kind enough to slit the top of the craters and drain more brain matter, but two hours later the boils were now larger-than-life, and I was more distressed than ever. So I turned to the internet where the answers to all of life’s mysteries may be found. I googled, “Flesh-colored nodules” and two hours later I was self-diagnosed with “Keratoacanthoma”, a non-cancerous skin growth related to sun exposure. That was plausible since K-canthoma begins as a pimple and grows into a boil-like tumor, just like the ones on top of my now horned-head. I learned that treatment required surgical excision, so I scheduled an appointment with a dermatologist who could not fit me in until the following week. No big deal; scalp-oozing and dribble-dabbing had become just part of the routine, and surely my scalp (or brain) would not be completely emptied in just one more week.
Finally dermatology-day arrived. One hour before my appointment I considered cancelling because a work-emergency arose (naturally) but I closed my eyes and said “no” to work and “yes” to saving my scalp! This turned out to be a good decision.
I related my bug-bite-in-Belize-turned-skin-cancer story to Dr. Dermatology. I probably should have left out the part about self-diagnosis because as soon as I mentioned “internet” he was tuning me out. I could almost HEAR him thinking, “blah-blah-blah…crazy lady using the internet…blah-blah-blah”, and I could tell from the slightly patronizing tone of his voice that he was making a heroic effort not to roll his eyes. Barely keeping the sarcasm out of his voice, he assured me I did NOT have skin cancer. “I can take another culture if you like,” said Dr. Dermatology, “but it’s likely we’re going to arrive at the saaaame conclusion as Dr. Urgent Care.” I was beyond desperate now! “Can’t you at least drain it?” I pleaded.
His forced patience was unmistakable as he patted the treatment-table and I lay down. With his trusty assistant by his side, Dr. Dermatology went to work draining my scalp. “Huh-that’s interesting” he said as he extracted some egg-like substance that he explained was likely just clotted blood. Then I sensed a shift in energy as his orders for gauze…tweezers…blade….more gauze increased in urgency. I felt a lot of poking and tugging at the top of my scalp, but I didn’t care. I just wanted these tumors (or whatever they were) to be drained once and for all!
One final tug and he was finished (or so I thought). In a curious tone, Dr. Dermatology asked if I would like to see what he had just fished out of the top of my scalp. “Sure”, I shrugged. I looked down at the piece of gauze he was holding out to me. (This is your last chance to exit the blog!)
On Monday, September 15, 2008 at 2:07pm, I gave birth to twins at the dermatologist. Unfortunately, the second twin was delivered in two pieces so I did not get a picture. Needless to say, they were identical twins – meaning they were equally disgusting, freak-nasty, parasitic larvae that had taken up residence in my scalp and in the course of two months had silently and revoltingly overtaken the space….rent-free!!
Here are my final thoughts:
1) There are botflys in Belize (you can google it yourself).
2) I will not be returning to Belize in this life or the next.
3) Whoever invented the phrase, “It made my skin crawl”?....has traveled to Belize.
4) Is there anyone else out there who knows what it feels like to be a human-host?
I think of Provo Canyon as my home away from home. As a family we've had experiences in the canyon and Wasatch mountains that could fill volumes of blog-space: Visiting Grandma and Grandpa Brown’s trailer across from Vivian Park, picnics at Vivian, South Fork, Bridal Veil, and Canyon Glen parks, afternoon-drives around the Alpine Loop and to Squaw Peak, biking the Provo River Parkway Trail, water-skiing at Deer Creek, tubing the Provo river, hiking Upper Falls, Stewart Falls, Cascade Springs and Timpanogos Cave trails, family reunion activities, backpacking and camping along the Ridge Trail. I have memorized every mile-marker along the Provo River Parkway Trail from Will’s Pit Stop to Vivian Park. Our son Justin lived for a summer at Aspen Grove Lodge where he worked as a camp counselor, and our daughter Jen even held her June wedding reception at the Conrad Ranch in Provo Canyon. 
I’m so glad I can check this off my “things to do before I die” list (and by check-off I mean be done with it!) I can honestly say this was harder than running a marathon, which may actually have more to do with being 15 years older and 50 pounds heavier; nevertheless it was grueling. I believe it was even more arduous for poor Emily, aka Mountain Goat, to hike with us, but as I consistently reminded her, I have children that are Emily’s age. Remember Kirk is the eldest son of 12 boys and 2 girls? Emily is married to Ryan, who is one of the brothers who falls in the younger-half-category of the 14 children. At one point on the downhill-side and toward the end of the hike (about mile 10) when she thought I wasn’t looking, I actually caught Emily jogging. It was almost as though she was desperately looking for a way to turn this into a workout, as if it hadn't been already!
