His health had been failing for years. Then he saw something crawling in his eye.

Washington Post ^

[BenLurkin]

He had been experiencing a litany of symptoms his doctors couldn’t explain: lumps that kept appearing and disappearing, blinding pain in his eyes that lasted for a day and came back another, a small muscle in his forehead that he felt “snap.” His white blood cells soared, and itchy rashes covered parts of his body. His joints ached. He was constantly hungry and he had been eating a lot, but he couldn’t gain weight. There was a sinking feeling that his body had become host to unwelcome visitors, but tests showed nothing.

One morning, he noticed a faint yellowish lump protruding from underneath his left cornea. And then he felt his eye vibrate, as if something was slithering from within. He rushed to a mirror to find that the lump had disappeared, replaced by a thin line that was also protruding. He touched it, and it moved.

At a hospital not far from his home in Dartmoor in southwestern England, a doctor scalped a tiny part of his eye’s outer layer and pulled out the wriggling parasite while Taylor kept his head still. And there it was, an inch-long roundworm called Loa loa. The doctor placed it in a container and Taylor watched it die.

That year, 2015, Taylor was diagnosed with Loiasis, commonly known as African eye worm, a condition caused by the parasite Loa loa. He contracted it after spending several days in the jungles of Gabon, a Central African country where infections caused by Loa loa had persisted for years. Taylor, a frequent world traveler who had spent parts of his childhood in Nigeria, Kenya and India, traveled to Gabon in the summer of 2013 after developing an interest in the country’s spiritual traditions.

[BenLurkin]

traveled to Gabon in the summer of 2013 after developing an interest in the country’s spiritual traditions.

he was looking for love in all the wrong places.

[NohSpinZone]

S***hole.

[ClearCase_guy]

an inch-long roundworm called Loa loa

There is a famous song about this roundworm, but I can never really make out the lyrics ...

[DIRTYSECRET]

One guy complaining of a headache had 5 bullets in his head. No bullet holes. I remember it vividly because it happened on the eve of the RFK assassination.

[DariusBane]

Nothing good comes from cultural tourism in the third world. Civilized immune systems sheltered by generations of vaccines are not equipped.

[BenLurkin]

[Red Badger]

[Red Badger]

Harvard or Yale?.................

[Mears]

That happens here——not just in Africa.

[Kickass Conservative]

Lawrence Harvey?

[fwdude]

I’m wondering if this was just one worm, or an indication of others remaining.

[Moonman62]

That year, 2015, Taylor was diagnosed with Loiasis, commonly known as African eye worm, a condition caused by the parasite Loa loa. He contracted it after spending several days in the jungles of Gabon, a Central African country where infections caused by Loa loa had persisted for years. Taylor, a frequent world traveler who had spent parts of his childhood in Nigeria, Kenya and India, traveled to Gabon in the summer of 2013 after developing an interest in the country’s spiritual traditions.

....

Every time I go to the doctor they ask me if I’ve traveled out of the country recently.

UK medicine sucks.

[Moonman62]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loa_loa_filariasis

[Dr. Sivana]

traveled to Gabon in the summer of 2013 after developing an interest in the country’s spiritual traditions.

That's funny, the religious order at my old Church sent priests to Gabon because their spiritual traditions need a serious upgrade. He even allowed them to serve him monkey brains in order to be a gracious guest. He could NOT bring himself to eat off of the plate of a pile of steamed baby monkeys, however.

The current system is rather Communist on a social level, as there isn't anything we would recognize as marriage in the villages he worked in, no particular concern over who is whom's father. It is kind of what some inner cities are turning into. Their excuse is that they were never civilized in the first place, and had not been exposed to Judeo-Christian morality.

[virgil]

We sang this in my parasitology class...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemG0cvc4oU

[Bigg Red]

Well said.

I never had a desire to go to such a country.

[\/\/ayne]

It seems that the worm has turned, my friend.

[piroque]

Karma = “The doctor placed it in a container and Taylor watched it die. “

[daler]

I believe that was an earwig.

[laplata]

I’m wondering if this was just one worm, or an indication of others remaining.

><

“The bad news is that it hatched it’s eggs, Mr. Jones”.