But I Love My Worm

Torsalo - The Bot Fly

For those of you who follow Olancho Bound Gringa's blog, you may already know about this. I actually had forgotten that I was going to post this until I had read her blog post on it.

Back in July, Lana got bit by a mosquito. Then the mosquito bite got bigger, and Lana for what seemed like no reason, would start to cry and dance around. It seems that her mosquito bite was Torsalo.

Now this isn't our first time dealing with a Torsalo. And in all reality, I doubt it will be the last. But I will say this was the biggest one that I have seen.

We tried to squeeze the torsalo out, but it wouldn't come out. We put vaseline over the hole - so that it would suffocate and die, and come out. That didn't work. We did so many different things that usually work, but this torsalo did not and would not come out.

As we were trying to get it out, we would tell her that it was a worm, and that it had to come out. We knew it hurt, but once we got it out, it would be all better.

I ended up taking her to a doctor in Tocoa, who after looking at her, and trying to squeeze it out herself, said that it would have to be surgically removed. She would have to be cut open, the torsalo pulled out, and then she would be stitched right back up. (and all of this for a grand total of L500, which comes out to about $26.50)

When Lana heard this, she decided that having a torsalo was much better than having a shot (to numb the area). She started telling the doctor in her non perfect spanish - no more, no more, I like my worm.

As the doctor came at her with the needle, I held her arms down, Sendy had her legs, a nurse had her body, another nurse was helping the doctor and the doctor was trying to give her a shot to numb her. With the first shot, all the anestesia squirted out the hole that the torsalo made. Same thing with the second and third shot. Then with the fourth try the doctor hit the torsalo, and that thing tried to come out the hole so quick, it wasn't funny. But it was so big, it didn't fit out the hole. The doctor got her little scissor/treewer things and began to pull on it. Now Lana is yelling, (still in spanish) I love my worm, I love my worm. Leave my worm alone, I want my worm in my chest. DONT TOUCH MY WORM. I LOVE MY WORM. I WANT MY WORM FOREVER. NO MORE. I DONT WANT YOU, I WANT MY WORM.

Do you know how hard it is to comfort your 3 yr old daughter when you are laughing at what she is saying? It isn't easy.

In the end, the doctor got the torsalo out, although the fuzzy/spiney part broke off as she was pulling it out. We had to wait for that to work its way out later.

The best part was when we got home, she had tears in her eyes as she told my husband, Papi, they took out my worm and killed it. I loved my worm.