From the beginning of spring until autumn, I always have extra guests in my apartment or wherever I am staying. Unwanted guests, however: mosquitoes. I have tried many lotions, sprays, oils, etc. to keep them away from me, but nothing seems to help. They simply ignore Lars during the night and come straight towards me for their portion of blood.
This spring however, our local pharmacy sold us a spray that worked! It actually smelled so bad that it also chased Lars away during the first 3 nights… But finally, I could welcome summer with almost no mosquito bites. Victory was mine!
Or so I thought… As soon as we arrived in Poland for our summer trip, my body became a battlefield. After one night, dozens of bites appeared all over my legs, arms, shoulders and back. One week later, when we arrived in Estonia, mosquitoes even went into my ears and nose, looking for blood… Needless to say that we went to the local pharmacies, but no lotion or spray was strong enough. It seemed that the blood in my body was simply too irresistible.
After a bit of more than three weeks, I gave up. I accepted the noises and the itching. Waving my arms frantically around to chase mosquitoes and other insects away and scratching my bites incessantly, became part of my normal behavior. But, I wasn’t suffering from anything else and honestly, we were having a good time. Things could be worse…
It all changed when we drove from Serbia to Bosnia. In the early afternoon, I became very sick and started vomiting a lot. Lars and I thought – and so did the doctor who came to visit me in the hotel – that I had eaten something wrong and was suffering from some intestinal infection. I received a couple of injections and off we went to Croatia.
2 days later and I was still having troubles with my tummy. I felt exhausted, nauseous and tired. No appetite at all. Mysterious red spots now also covered my right leg; they didn’t itch at all, but burned. One thing was sure: these were not mosquito bites. A bad sunburn maybe?
At the end of the 4th week, the burning feeling had increased and my right leg started to swell. We were in the Czech Republic at that time and (finally) decided to go to a hospital. In the course of 2 hours, my right leg had become twice the size of my left leg and it had turned almost purple…
The diagnosis was a bit of a shock. I had been infected by a streptococcus bacteria. Say what? Apparently, the nasty little beast had wormed its way into my leg via a mosquito bite and had infected the upper layers of my skin. Result: 5 days in hospital, with numerous infusions of antibiotics and penicilline. For somebody like me, who is afraid of needles, this was certainly a challenge.
But that wasn’t all. Two dermatologists followed my case, which sounds like luxury. In reality, it was a curse. I didn’t need to understand the local language to figure out that the 2 women couldn’t stand each other, leading to constant bickering, quarreling and contradicting each other. Great. Really professional. Rather frustrating. To say that I was relieved when I left that place is the understatement of the year…
When I saw a German doctor, it became clear that I had been – and was – the victim of 3 medical errors:
- I am actually allergic to penicilline.
- The Czech hospital had given me the wrong dosage of antibiotics.
- And last but not least, the Czechs had somehow ignored a giant blister on my right leg (yes, on the infected skin). The blister itself was infected as well, being completely surrounded by dead, black skin. Lars and I nicknamed it “the Black Monster”.
It has been 3 weeks now that I am at home. Lars has become a nurse, changing bandages and giving me medication. One more week, and then I will I know if I can return to work. Looking back at it all, I tend to be positive though:
- There are worse diseases than this one.
- We had 4 fantastic weeks!
So, in a couple of weeks, we will posts our stories and pictures of our summer trip. In the meantime, I still have to publish stuff from our trips of this spring.
And I have learned a valuable lesson… Next year, as soon as I have mosquito bites, I will disinfect them!
