That title really has nothing to do with my post. It's just that I heard an Indonesian friend humming it the other day, and it made me happy that CCR has made it this far.
Anyways, this past week has been an interesting one. It started on Saturday. I found some creepy looking worm/larvae bugs (they had legs!) crawling around in my clothes. Soon after finding those bugs - which I never actually touched - my neck started swelling, itching, and breaking out in hives. And it was spreading fast. Luckily, my best Hotjaga was posted outside my house at that exact time. I say "luckily" because he is the doctor in this country that I trust the most. Granted, he's not a real doctor. But he's my doctor. I described the bug to him and had him look at my neck. He wouldn't even touch it because of how bad it looked. He told me not to itch it, but that was just about impossible. He thought for a minute and asked, "Do you have any frying oil?" I said I did, and he told me to rub some of that on the infected area and "see what happens". By this time, the hives were down to my collarbone, all across the back of my neck, and down to my left shoulder. I said I'd try anything. So I went back to my house and slathered some coconut oil on it. And lo and behold, the rash immediately stopped spreading, and the oil soothed the itching.
I didn't really want to go to bed (it was 11:30 at night by this point) because I didn't want to saturate my pillow and sheets with frying oil, so I stayed up and read for awhile. Near 1, Hotjaga asked if he could see my neck, so I went back out and reported in for my check-up. He declared my rash to be in remission, which it was. I came back in a looked in the mirror, and while it was still a little red, all the bumps were gone, and the entire area was smaller than the palm of my hand. So I washed it all and went to bed.
Sunday was great - you couldn't even tell I'd had a near death encounter the night before. OK, so maybe not, but really, who knows? My throat could have swelled shut if Hotjaga hadn't saved me!
Monday I woke up feeling nauseous, and by the end of the day, I had a nasty headache and no appetite. That evening, I found more of those bugs in my room, and when I went to bed, I felt like something was biting me as I slept. It was hard to get to sleep because I was so itchy. I could feel bumps on my skin in the dark, but I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, all the bumps were gone - no sign of them.
Tuesday I woke up feeling nauseous again. I went out to dinner with Aswan, and I couldn't even eat my favorite sick food - chicken noodle soup! I was so nauseous and had a fever too. I sat in the open air restaurant in the cool mountain air dripping sweat off my face. I didn't sleep well that night either because I was hot and itching so much.
Wednesday I woke up with a REALLY sick stomach and spent the first 15 minutes of my day on the toilet. Then I spent the rest of the day being hit with waves of nausea. I went to Bible study that night as usual. I wanted to get out of the house, and I prayed we would be eating some gentle food. No such luck. Someone had cooked rica rica babi for us which is basically chunks of pork (including cut up ears and pieces of skin - with hair) saturated in oil and cooked in some seriously SPICY spices. Rica rica is just about my spice limit - and let me tell you, after living here for four years, this girl can HANDLE the heat! Since that was the ONLY thing served, there was no way around it. I grinned and bore it. Someone else had made jello for dessert, and after I finished my pork dish, I reached for some of that to cool my mouth off. It was yellow, and I asked someone what flavor it was, hoping for pineapple.
CORN. Wouldn't you know, it was CORN jello.
Anyways, needless to say, I spent at LEAST the first 15 minutes of the next morning on the toilet as well. But back the story up. Wednesday night when I got home from Bible study, I went straight to bed. I was feeling really warm again, so I slept on top of the covers. The feeling of being bit was really bad. It felt like I was being attacked by mosquitoes. I couldn't stop itching ALL OVER and it was keeping me up. So I turned on my bedside light and watched and waited. I could feel myself being bit, but I couldn't see anything biting me. By 1, when I still couldn't sleep, I decided to get up and shower, hoping that would help. It didn't, but as I stripped down, I could see red marks all over my body, confirming that I WAS being bit by something. Finally at 2-ish, I was able to drift off to sleep out of sheer exhaustion.
The next day, I decided I'd had enough, and I left a note for my helper explaining the situation and asking her to put my mattress out on the lawn to get some sun (this generally will kill anything that might be living in it) and wash all my bedding.
When I got home from school that day, she reported to me that when she'd cleaned my mattress, she found TONS of those same creepy looking bugs living in my luggage UNDER my bed. Now, they would definitely be big enough to see and feel if they were biting me at night. She said that maybe they were getting in my bed during the day and my skin was having some reaction to that, causing a rash. A valid idea. So anyways, she had deep cleaned my entire room plus put my mattress outside all day AND cleaned and dried all my bedding. She also sprayed for bugs. So my entire house pretty much smelled like a mix of toxic chemicals and freshly washed blankets and sheets. I took a nap, and it was the best I slept all week.
That night, I went out to dinner with some friends. When I got home, I was feeling nauseous again, and I was looking forward to my first full night of comfortable sleep all week.
Until I got in my bedroom.
And found cat vomit all over my bed.
With live stomach worms still crawling around in it.
On my clean bedspread.
And on my floor.
All my bedding was soaked with vomit clear through to the mattress.
So. I used a tissue to gather all the long, white, wriggling worms and those guys went straight down the toilet. All the bedding got gathered up and thrown outside my house. My mattress got scrubbed down with a brush and antibacterial hand soap, dish soap, vinegar, and febreeze. Then I left it to dry for a couple of hours with the ceiling fan on high. When I came back, I flipped it and put on clean sheets. But my only blanket was laying in the alley behind my house covered in cat barf. I found a small fleece blanket and slept with that. I left a note for my helper once again explaining the situation and asking her to please re-clean all my freshly cleaned bedding.
Friday, my stomach was finally feeling better, and I got home to find everything nice and clean. Cats remained locked out of the house the ENTIRE day, and I got my first great night of sleep in days. Saturday, I went to Solo all day with friends, and when I came home, I found that while I was out, something small had POOPED on my pillow. That's right. Probably a gecko. Or a small bird. It was about that size. After I got that cleaned up, I went to get a glass of water, and that's when I realized how much like a dead rat my kitchen smelled. I SEARCHED. In the cupboards, in the sink, in the trash, under the fridge, in the toaster, in my dishes. Nothing. Then I noticed the plastic bag sitting on the counter. I opened it up and took a whiff to see if that was the source of the assaulting smell. I regretted that whiff. Inside were six small dead fish that my helper had bought at market to feed my cats. She forgot to put them in the fridge, and so from Friday afternoon until Saturday night, they went unnoticed in their bag on my kitchen counter.
By that point, I could not even roll my eyes with surprise. Because I had no surprise left in me.
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