A Moment of Health Self-Absorption

“You can’t avoid mosquitos, they’re everywhere!” Miriam told me, after I told her about the plan I had come up with, in the event that I hadn’t been able to return to her parent’s home for my malaria medication last week. My plan involved dousing myself with repellent and skulking about indoors, huddling  under a net, for the duration of our trip to Lake Malawi. Fortunately, I had been able to retrieve my pills.

Miriam is right –indeed, as I type this, I find myself scratching my left knee. Although I have only had one visual sighting of a mosquito snacking upon me, I seem to find new bites on an almost daily basis. I have reason to believe (or hope) that some are actually ant bites – as the red blotches are scattered on the front and sides of my lower legs. I’m chocking those up to the time I spent sitting on the sand, reading and flicking ants away from me and my towel.

The red bite mark on my right-side? Harder to explain – perhaps a spider? Yes, a spider might have wedged itself securely inside my safety net, and come prowling about while I was sleeping.

I’ve been scratching my elbow – what gives? Fleas? Could there be fleas in the room? Let us hope so.

And I know there’s no way a mosquito could have gotten in between my toes, so that’s probably just a phantom itch, fuelled by fear.

Cockroaches? African millipedes? Winged termites? I’ve had encounters with all of these – perhaps some of them sprayed some miniscule droplets of venom during their respective death throes.

And the mysterious red blotch on my left forearm, the one that I noticed upon awakening this morning – surely the act of a rogue and unseen bed bug. Bed bugs bite, don’t they?

According to Larry, if there’s a red dot, with a white mark around the outside, it’s likely a mosquito bite. I haven’t noticed any of those on me – but I did see one such bite, on Miriam’s lower arm. On the other hand, the raised red lumps I see on myself closely resemble the bites which I associate with the Canadian mosquitoes. On the reserve, early in the summer, I used to make a point of letting mosquitoes bite me at will – this seemed to give me a level of immunity which meant I didn’t itch so much later on. Not in Africa, no way!

Miriam, interestingly, is the only one in her family who has never had malaria – her mom, dad and two brothers have all suffered through the disease. So it’s possible to escape Africa with a clean record.

Every day, I assess myself for unexplainable aches and pains, for the onset of sudden fever, for spinning head and malaise. For signs of liver failure and skin mottling. So far, nothing.

I realize that the Canadian blood supply is not dependent upon liters of my red and bubbly, but it’s in me to give, and I hate to think that I could end up on the banned donors list, all because an infected mosquito disregarded the “Trespassers Will Be Sprayed” signs I have posted in micro-lettering, on all doors, windows and other insect thoroughfares.