Got Worms?

Warning: This blog entry is not for the mannerly or the faint of heart.

It’s been said that anytime people in my line of work get together for more than 5 minutes the conversation will inevitably turn to gastro-intestinal issues. Truer words were never spoken.

The question is no longer “have you ever experienced…” but “when was the last time…,” “for how long have…,” “what color was it,” or my personal favorite “was it frothy?” I admit that it’s a very disgusting topic, but when you are living in a new place, eating unfamiliar food, and very often having to diagnose and medicate yourself it ceases to seem crude and instead is simply “medical talk.”

So one of those not-so-pleasant gastro-intestinal issues we have to be ready to deal with is a variety of worms. No…not earthworms—gastro-intestinal worms. It’s been recommended that once every six months we take a de-worming medicine that kills several different types of these worms. Some people do this religiously, others have never done it. It’s kind of left up to us.

Thankfully, I’ve had very little trouble thus far with gastro-intestinal issues. However, over the last few weeks, several people have commented that I looked thinner. I didn’t think so, and I had been eating plenty and exercising, so I figured it was just the new haircut you read about last month. However, I realized that I have now been here over six months and have been eating as much or more than usual. If I really was loosing weight, it made sense that I might have gotten worms of one sort or another and that all of that food was going to them rather than my body and causing me to look thinner. So I decided it was time to go to the pharmacy and get the prescription-strength medicine (without a prescription, of course).

It was an easy purchase even though I didn’t know what the name of the medicine was. I guess “medicine for stomach worms” is clear enough in any language. The indications seemed easy enough, down the two pills with a glass of water. No horrible aftertaste, no weird side effects, just take the pills and wait. So I did.

The part that I wasn’t looking forward to was what I had to do after waiting.Basically the medicine kills the worms, and you simply expel them the same way you do everything else. Unfortunately, you are supposed to visually examine your “deposit” to see if it has worms in it. That way you know if you need to follow up with something else.

Fortunately for me, I saw nothing out of the ordinary and could happily say that “worm-free is the way to be.” So now I was convinced that it was just the haircut…but I knew that my Mom and all you other parents out there might need a little more convincing that I really am not “wasting away” over here. So I went to the mall.

That may sound a bit odd, but when you’ve been on a shoe-string budget as long as I have, you learn lots of good tricks. So at a particular store in the mall they have a display of all of their different scales. If you’re like me and you only weigh yourself like once every three months, there’s no sense in spending outrageous amounts of cash for a scale. You simply make a visit to the mall, try out all the different scales, take the average reading and you’re good to go.

I can now tell you with 100% confidence, that I haven’t lost any weight. More importantly I can tell you that I’m 100% worm-free.

...I guess now I better do something about that haircut!