Larvaphobia or Things that make my skin crawl...
Her Intimate Little Friend
"I think there's something under my skin!"
"How is that, Mrs. Crawford?"
"Well, the other night, I was painting my fingernails, and I felt this tickling sensation on my forearm. I scratched at the area and I looked to see if there was a rash or something. It was then that I saw my skin move. It darn well frightened the wits out of me!"
I stared at the patient for a while. I was very curious about her condition and I could see by the way she looked at me that she expected an answer to her strange problem.
"Mrs. Crawford, have you by any chance just returned from any trips abroad?" I asked quietly.
"Yes, I have. Didn't Doctor Mann inform you?"
"No, he didn't. I think he may have forgotten to tell me." I wrote in my notebook briefly. I felt Mrs. Crawford hesitate before she finally answered.
"I was in Indonesia, near Sulawesi. My husband and I went diving."
"I think we're getting somewhere. Did you by any chance drink or ingest anything during your stay, such as native fruits, vegetables, or raw fish?"
"Well, we couldn't find any bottled water so we drank mostly beer and sodas, but we also drank some well water while we were hiking in the countryside. We did try some of the spicy fish, raw and cooked."
"I don't think the well water is the cause of your problem, Mrs. Crawford, but about the fish, what was the spec---." I noticed a strange look pass quickly across her face. She looked down suddenly and held out her right forearm in front of her.
"There it goes again!"
I got up and stepped closer to her arm. Her skin was pale beneath the fluorescent light, but I did notice a slightly elongated bump, about a quarter of an inch long. I was about to say something to Mrs. Crawford when I saw the bump move. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" I whispered as I gently grasped her forearm below the wriggling form. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at me.
"What do you think it is, Dr. Fern? Do you think it's some kind of tumor?" she whispered.
"I don't know yet, but let me try something for a moment." I applied gentle pressure to her forearm and at the same time, I slowly moved my hand upwards. As I did, I pushed against the bump which responded by moving away. It wriggled beneath the skin as I proceeded to herd it upward towards Mrs. Crawford's shoulder. By this time, my patient was beginning to realize that whatever was beneath her skin was alive and moving towards her head.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing? I can feel it moving!" she cried.
"I've done my fair share of exotic procedures. I know what I'm doing, though I've never had first-hand experience dealing with this particular species of parasite! I've only seen it done." The parasite was now at her jaw, creeping slowly beneath the skin of her cheek. I thought to myself that Mrs. Crawford was pretty brave since at any moment her intimate little friend was about to emerge. I stared at her left eye, waiting for the thing to reveal itself.
"Why are you staring at me?" asked the curious but pale Mrs. Crawford.
"Wait and see," I said. But the wait wasn't long.
With a cry of horror and disgust, Mrs. Crawford fumbled at her left eye as the worm-like parasite slowly squeezed itself out of the corner of her eye. The parasite trembled as it slowly hung from a glistening strand of mucus that was attached to her eyelashes. her hand flinched at the slightly warm feel of the worm's segmented body. She started to scream as the thing grimly held on to the eyelashes of her left eye.
I was near panic myself and I tried to calm her down in order for me to remove the worm, but with a quick motion, Mrs. Crawford managed to knock it off her face. It fell to the floor as she ran to the door. She left the building still screaming at the top of her lungs.
It took a while for me to calm down too. I braced myself for what I had to do next. Stepping to the still wriggling parasite, I picked it up and looked at the little troublemaker. I couldn't believe my eyes as I looked closer: the darn thing had recently laid many eggs!