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Rite of Passage
10:12 AM, Wednesday, 12 July, 2006
Last week while walking backwards I ran into an orchid. Just a regular orchid with regular orchid flower sticks that are HARD and SHARP and gave me a teeny-tiny-ant-sized scratch. On my right calf. My teeny-tiny-ant-sized scratch seemed fine so I didn't bother washing it or covering it. When I woke up the next day it looked a bit red so I applied betadine and a bandaid.
The next day it still wasn't looking too good. More betadine and a bandaid.
The day after that, it was looking worse. I suggested to Hu that I might die, and he said I wouldn't. I continued with the betadine for a few more days.
Yesterday, a week later, it was really looking NASTY. All around the teeny-tiny-ant-sized scratch was red and swollen and pusy, and there were tentacles of redness spreading across my leg. Even my Papua New Guinean colleagues (not known for their squeamishness) said it was gross.
One call to International SOS (thank goodness for volunteer programs that include medical insurance!) later and I was being sent to the doctor with the orders, 'No you can't wait until Thursday, unless you want to be in hospital on an antibiotic drip with blood poisoning!'.
A very nice doctor here in Port Moresby said, 'You could call that a tropical ulcer'. It was disinfected and dressed, and now I have to take 1000 milligrams of some crazy antibiotics every day for the next five days. I guess that's better than having my leg chopped off because of gangrene, and then dying of blood poisoning. I told you I might die, Hu!!!
Who would have thought that a teeny-tiny-ant-sized scratch could turn in to a weeping, revolting tropical ulcer? I'm quite impressed. The doctor said that I couldn't have prevented it, because tropical ulcers just happen in the tropics.
But at least now I can say that not only have I lived in a tropical country, but I have also contracted a strange and disgusting and crazy tropical illness. I'm just disappointed that I forgot to take a photo of it before the drugs started to kick in!
Filed under EEEEeeekk!!!
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Tracked on March 25, 2007 11:18 PM
Comments
hey lady with the pink uke
so lovely to meet you in cyberspace
very sorry to hear about your tropical ulcer -thanking the gads you ignored hu and got some medical advice - these random things can turn into massive ones
be good - will keep perving on your posts
xx
ricebag
Posted by: islandbaby | July 12, 2006 11:36 AM
That'll be gone by the time i get there, right?
Posted by: Yehia | July 12, 2006 3:38 PM
ooo... how cool? Am sorry there are no accompanying photos. I have a festy burn on my hand, and I think it looks like I have leprosy. Not quite as exciting as a tropical ulcer, but the best I can do in my non-tropical and really quite chilly location!
Posted by: Tori | July 12, 2006 5:47 PM
I cannot express how truly glad I am you did not take a photograph of it. Because I KNOW you would have put it on here.
Posted by: Katia ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.pinkukulele.com/nav-commenters.gif)
| July 12, 2006 7:06 PM
It sounds as though it was truly gross...
Ewwww.........
Posted by: Susanna | July 12, 2006 7:28 PM