MY BOT FLY DIARY

Fly Boy. The nickname conjures up images of macho pilots, posing in front of jet aircraft with swept-back wings. Fly boy is also what my friends started calling me --- along with other terms of endearment such as maggot-man when I was infected with Bot Fly.

My adventure as a parasitic playground began in Quintana Roo. I hadn't noticed anything until the morning I awoke with a hang-over after partying with the bongo players on the beach. Actually it was the pain in my left arm that woke me up! It felt like somebody was butting out a cigarette in my flesh. I inspected the area and noticed only two small wounds that looked like mosquito bites. But why all the pain?

Thinking a spider or some other Mexican bug had bitten me, I simply wrote it off and went on about my business. I returned home and had all but forgotten about the bites, except for the odd spell of itchiness at the site. Then, one night the pain returned, this time even more intense and sustained. Hours later, I found myself in the Clinic for Tropical Disease at the local hospital.

The interns at the Clinic were fascinated. Something had definitely set up housekeeping in my arm. What did I have festering up there? The specialist breezed in, hauled out a big magnifying glass, and inspected the area. "Have you been in a jungle lately?", he asked knowingly. I dutifully outlined my recent travel history in the Lacandon jungle. "Hmmm. Looks like it's Bot Fly," he pronounced. The interns gasped in astonishment and hustled to take a look through the magnifying glass.

Meanwhile, I was more than a little alarmed. What the hell was a Bot Fly? And what was it doing in my arm?

The doctor explained that while I was in the jungle, an insect, probably a mosquito, had bitten me. Riding along on the belly of the mosquito were Bot Fly eggs. In one of evolution's little tricks for perpetuating creepy-crawlers, Bot Fly eggs are programmed to drop off the mosquito when it lands on something warm and hospitable to act as a host. The eggs somehow find their way into the tiny puncture hole made by the mosquito bite, and begin to grow into larva beneath the surface of the host's skin. In this case, the host was me. Two bot fly larvae were now growing in my arm.

Now for some real-time reporting...

As I type, I am ready to puke. I can feel them wiggling around in my arm. The larvae have sharp spines to help them stay lodged in their new home, so whenever they move around it hurts like hell. They also have a little breathing tube that I can actually see emanating from the puncture made by the mosquito. I have been told that the larvae are quite harmless and that there is nothing to fear. If I like the little darlings, I can simply let them grow to maturity whereupon they will pack their bags and leave the roost, kissing daddy goodbye. But the ongoing nauseous feeling of maggots growing in me is a total turn-off. It is creeping my girlfriend out and I am not allowed in the same bed as her. She is afraid they may hatch in the middle of the night.

I have three more days to go before I return to the clinic. So for three more days I will attempt to forget about these things at every opportunity. That is, until one of them decides to wiggle around. I wonder what the folk on the subway would think if they knew.

THE BIG DAY

Today's the big day. Iggy and Squiggy get their walking papers. I've had it. These things have long outgrown their usefulness as the ultimate gross-out tool. Besides I no longer enjoy the dubious distinction of being a medical freak. I simply want to go back to my life prior to becoming a maggot-infested host.

The larvae seem to have grown. At least the bumps on my arm are growing so we suspect it is the little critters gobbling away on my tender bod. The doctor's scalpel cannot strike soon enough...

It was not to be. Apparently cutting out the larvae is a last resort, and one other step was recommended. I was instructed to take beer caps, fill them full of Vaseline, place the beer caps over the spot, and tape them tightly against my skin. Amazingly, this method of treatment has a long and positive history. The idea was that the maggots would start to suffocate and voluntarily leave the host searching for air. The bugs enter the vaseline-filled bottle cap where they eventually die of asphyxiation. So much for modern medicine.

I needed no encouragement to generate new beer bottle caps for my treatment. I got home and made a beeline for the fridge. Equipped with the tools for an offensive strike, I felt confident. My journey was almost over.

But wait: perhaps this was an opportunity for me to do some research and experimentation. The doctor said that the maggots didn't like tobacco resin. If I smother their nest with the resin, they might exit on their own accord. I lit up a smoke and drank my beers. It made sense somehow. Tobacco is used by the Indians of the Lacandon jungle to ward off insects and snakes as well. Many Indians plant tobacco around their huts for this very purpose. They also eat lots of hot peppers which when sweated out coats the body with a natural anti mosquito repellent, but it was a little too late for me to try that trick.

Soon I had enough resin --- two smokes worth, to be precise. I covered one of the large red sores on my arm and waited. Magnifying glass in hand, I searched for any sign of movement. Nada, Iggy wouldn't budge.

Plan B. We filled two beer caps with Vaseline and taped them to my arm. I felt a little movement after about twenty minutes, then nothing. I watched TV, then took my baby bot-flies off to bed.

LIBERATING IGGY

The next morning I was off to the hospital again. The small room was filled to capacity with curious students and interns. The doctor removed the beer caps and inspected the area. Nothing. The larvae were still in me. However, there had been absolutely no wiggling at all for many hours. We assumed that the beasts were dead. The doctor then started squeezing one of the wounds to extract the carcasses. If you would like to know how this feels, ask somebody to pinch you as hard as they can and not let go for at least ten minutes.

The doctor pinched and pinched. Everyone watched in anticipation. Then all of a sudden part of the maggot popped out of the hole. It was like a scene out of the movie Alien. I screamed. Not because it hurt but because it was the grossest thing I had ever witnessed in my life. The doc gave another big squeeze and more of the thing popped out. I let out an even bigger scream as the thing's body was now clearly oozing out of the hole.

As everybody in the room jostled to get a closer look, the doctor advised me not to watch anymore. I agreed. Finally, the whole thing popped out. One down, one to go. The doc started a new squeezing frenzy but after a few minutes he was exhausted. A new doctor took over. The pinching intensified. My arm felt like one big bruise!

Squiggy would not budge. No matter how much the doctors squeezed, the maggot would not exit. My arm was numb with pain. We finally agreed to let him stay there and my white blood cells would have a picnic on the maggot's body. The doctor bottled my former house-pet for me to show everyone at home, and off I went, Fly-Boy no more. Over time the swelling in my arm has subsided.

POSTSCRIPT

You could say that I possess a deeper affinity with the insect world after my ordeal, although I am not eager to repeat the experience of serving as a maggot host. Instead, the words of my jungle brother now have come into sharper focus. He once told me that it was not so much the big things in the jungle that you have to worry about, but the little things. How right he was.