Mysterious Afflication Wrap-Up/Update

Sitting here in my lovely backyard, enjoying what is surely one of the last fine days of the season, I am finally hunkering down to update you. When I last left you, I had just arrived at my new home in Valparaiso. Within a few hours, I was invited downstairs to join an asado, Chilean-style BBQ, with my new family. Afterwards, I went to the beach with three of my new “brothers.” Things were starting out just swimmingly. EXCEPT, for this weird affliction that engulfed my body in about 2.5 seconds.

The week before, I noticed some bites on my arms but I didn't really pay much attention to them as I was sleeping in hostel beds, scaling mountains and so on. That meant two things; first that I didn't really have time to be preoccupied, even if I wanted to and second, bites didn't seem to be out of the ordinary. Until my entire back erupted. Then my arms and fingers. One of my new housemates nodded knowingly and said “Ah sí, pulgas.” If you don't know what that means, God bless you. It means fleas. Chile seems to have quite the flea problem but my roomie assured me they usually die down in the winter. Great, because winter was still a good two months away. I was none too thrilled about this but I thanked my stars that the fleas at least left my face alone. Then my cheek started itching. And my face erupted. Now, for those of you who know me well, you may have picked up on the fact that I can be slightly hyperbolic but I promise you that it is no exaggeration to say that I was acutely afflicted, a veritable monster. Seriously, I scared small children on the subway. It looked like someone attacked my face with a meat tenderizer.

The next morning, I headed straight to the pharmacy, held up my arms and lifted my protective curtain of hair in front of the poor woman working the counter. She winced and called for backup. The man who had the misfortune of being head pharmacist in charge shoved some Allegra and calming spray at me and fled.

In the meantime, I had to catch a bus to Santiago to meet my beloved sister at the airport. She was to arrive the following morning and I was spending the night at my friend Monika's so I could get up and early and fetch Nika. The woman who sat down next to me on the bus took a closer look and promptly got up and moved. Awesome. I was kinda worried that Monika would not be very thrilled to see a cube steak ringing her door bell instead of me but she handled the situation the tact and grace by telling me that she had a friend with leprosy. Or something that made her a total freak, just like me. We had a grand old time eating dinner and looking up bed bugs, fleas and other things on the internet.

In the morning, I hopped a bus to the airport and drank a crappy cappuccino while waiting for Nika to arrive. We shared a huge hug and she appraised my face and said “it's not that bad.” Then I lifted my hair, which I had cunningly styled to hide the 50-plus bites on my right side and she said “oh.”


We got the rental car with no hassle, except that it was a piece of junk. No matter, we blazed onward to Valparaiso with my valiant sister at the wheel. I'm not quite sure how she managed that after 20+ hours on a plane but I suspect she has super powers. Once we got home and Nika further inspected, we decided it was time to go to a hospital, the situation was getting dire. Fortunately, my landlord Rocio was able to join us and we went all over the place, looking for a doctor to see me. Welcome to Chile, Nika! I'm sure that wasn't on her list of things to do in Chile but...desperate times! The homeopathic doctor who finally saw me said I was having an acute allergic reaction to a few bites and wrote me a script. As of that evening, my affliction started to fade, I don't know if it was psychosomatic, the homeopathic remedies or the Allegra or a combination. However, it still looked pretty bad until about a week later, when I was finally able to pull my hair up into a ponytail and show my face. (Three weeks later, the marks are still there but I am sure they will fade someday. In the meantime, it just looks like a mild case of total body, adult acne.)

Anyway, that's the status on my little problem and considering the myriad other things that could have happened to me, this is relatively innocuous, if not a bit inconvenient and totally embarassing. Forgive me for a picture-free post, fear not,
I have plenty but I think we can all agree that this is one entry that really does not beg for visual illustration.