the eejit

Here is Mila, in the Hospital de Niños, Panama, with a lump of gel taped to her head. A couple of weeks ago she went with the grandparents to our land near Trinidad. There a Botfly (Dermatobia hominis) attacked a mosquito, laying its eggs on the mosquitos body. the Mosquito then bit Mila on the head and an egg of the bot fly fell onto her skin. An egg also fell onto Milas grandmother who was carrying her at the time.

Of course, no one had any idea this was all going on except almighty mooley brain up there, of course.

The days passed and both larva dug themselves in to their new found homes, spreading tendrils of spines to secure their feeding position.

Last thursday, the bumps had grown, and their presence noted, and Grandmother and Mila went to the doctors. Grandmothers was removed first. They then decided to take Mila to the free hospital because of the great experience they have there of removing ugly parasites from children. We got there in the late afternoon. 

In the surgery, I was told to leave. Mila started to scream !PAPA… Papa! They wrapped her up in a velcro sheet to stop her squirming. They stuck a lump of gel to her head to see if the evil bugger would suffocate and so start to retreat backwards out of the head whereupon it could snatched from my childs pure flesh. It didnt work. They then wrapped her in the velcro blanket of terror again and started to hack into her head. I sat outside. Hours passed, the screaming got worse. I paced up and down. Eventually at 10pm we were told they couldnt get it out and she would have to stay overnight and have an operation by a surgeon to remove it in the morning. 

We made it up the ward in the early hours of the morning. Rows and rows of small babies, each one with a mother by its side, or what would be better described as a walking zombie. 

Days in the hospital sitting 24 hours by your asthmatic baby who every 10 minutes starts to cough and choke, and you learn to sleep when you can in positions like this.

I didnt want to take too many photos, a shame because it would make a very interesting photo documentary. My concerns were with Mila who was just exhausted…

Poor lass. but soon she went to sleep and thankfully slept almost the whole night. I sat through the night, watching the mothers and their unusual worlds. Some could even sleep sitting upright. A sure sign of their experience in this matter. Soon it was 5am and role call. Mila was awakened but was in a uprisingly good mood.

She was taken down to surgery and in an hour they had taken an inch square chunk of flesh from the top of her head, in an attempt to search for the larvae. They didn’t find it. The surgeon supposed that it must have come out in the night.

With four stictches in her frankensteinian loaf of bread, Mila is doing alright, and is making a full recovery.

This is taken from ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly2.html:

Human Bot Flies are not tiny flies.  They’re pretty large and are nearly the size of bees.  They have a yellowish head, huge bluish-black thorax or body, with orange legs and brown wings.  These flies have an extremely powerful urge to reproduce.  If they were to fly towards you, not only would you hear their annoying buzz and notice how big they are, but you also would immediately try squashing them with your shoe.

            As you’ll soon find out, Bot Flies are not only cunning, they’re gifted with an IQ equal to Einstein. They know the impending doom that awaits them if they’re seen flying in your home, let alone near you.  So what do they do?  They fly out and seek a mosquito or tick.  The lower their IQ count the better.  The Bot Fly then holds the mosquito’s wings to prevent it from escaping.  It then glues about 15 to 30 eggs at a time on the abdomen of the bloodsucking mosquito.  When the Bot Fly lets go of the mosquito’s wings, the mosquito flies away carrying the Bot Fly eggs.  The mosquito then prepares for landing on your warm body.  As the mosquito sucks on your blood, your body heat begins to hatch the Bot Fly eggs on the abdomen of the mosquito.  Once the eggs hatch and the mosquito takes off to find more blood to suck on, the tiny baby maggots burrow into your skin.  It takes about 5 to 60 minutes for these baby maggots to burrow completely under your skin, either through a hole they make for themselves or through the bite hole made by the mosquito.  You won’t even feel a thing, not yet anyway.

            These baby maggots position themselves head down inside your skin with 2 oral hooks which they use to tear your tissue while they feed on you.  The rows of curved spines along their body help anchor the maggots onto your skin.  While the maggots feed on you they make a hole in your skin so they can breathe and excrete waste.  For 6 to 8 weeks the maggots begin to grow big and strong, munching deliciously away on you. As they mature, you’ll begin to develop sores that itch like crazy.  These itchy sores will then develop into egg-size painful boil-like sores that house the growing maggots and often ooze.  You will then feel a stabbing painful feeling due to the maggots tearing off your tissue while feeding and from their spines irritating your tissue as they squirm around.  You’ll be able to see and feel the maggots move and wiggle under your skin. How gross!  Once the maggots grow fairly large, they will eat their way out of your skin where they fall to the ground and continue to pupate into adult flies.  The entire horrible life cycle, from birth to adult, takes around 3 months.

The legendary explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who ventured into the unknown tropical wilderness of South America, wrote about these Human Bot Flies.  The natives called them “Sututus.”  Let us allow Colonel Fawcett to relate his encounter with the Sututus.

            “Sututus were another trial for some of us: these are the grubs of a moth or mosquito which, after hatching from eggs left on the shirt, immediately bury themselves under the skin-usually on the back.  The little brutes could not be extracted until the sore they made was “ripe,” and even then it was an art to get them, for on being molested they clung to the flesh with sharp mandibles.  Tobacco juice sometimes helped, but killing them under the surface could bring on blood poisoning.  Later on, the Indians undertook the cure in their own way.  They would make a curious whistling noise with their tongues, and at once the grub’s head would issue from the blowhole.  Then the Indian would give the sore a quick squeeze, and the invader was ejected.”

Modern science eh?

On another note, here are some various street pictures from the last week for your delight.

This is the new-look Clint on the back of a Diablo Rojo…

Dont forget, if in Panama tonight come along at 7pm to Manolo Caracol..