Pixie in Paradise

I thought I wrote about giving Mo medicine last week for “bugs in his butt” (worms), but maybe that was just me sending a bunch of text messages to friends letting them know I drugged the cat. Well, I did. It was very evident from almost the first week I knew Mo that the likelihood was high that he would carry some variety of stomach worms: tapeworms, roundworms, and the like. He’s an outdoor cat that roams the neighborhood 40% of the time – less since I’ve shown up. Mo lounges around in my house or on one of the patios closest to the main house basically from about 6 am until 4 pm. Sometimes he shows up for a late meal so if we add that in he’s only on his own 30% of the time. I don’t know, I don’t have a pie chart or calculator in front of me. Who gives a shit? The point is, the boy is here a lot and I love it. 

Mo went eight hours in the jungle on his own one night last month and showed up at 6 am in my house as per his usual. While waiting for breakfast, he threw up all over the kitchen floor. It definitely had some stuff in it that resembled squirmies but truthfully it could have been plant material, pin feathers from birds or fins from fish. It was long and white and shouldn’t have been there, is my point. I still took a photo in case I needed to go to town and show someone at a vet clinic. Can you imagine an American woman with limited Spanish skills showing up and showing people at the desk of a Costa Rican vet clinic this photo of feces? For all I know they might think it was mine! I have to get a grip on the extent of my love for this cat but please be assured that I will not and have no intention of trying. And I’m still trying to wrap my head around why he would wait until the precise hour for indoor breakfast when he had acres and miles of jungle and beach to barf on before his arrival back to civilization.

One of the wonderful things about other countries than the one I am a legal resident of, is that you can walk into a farmacia/pharmacy anywhere in Central America and get most medicines you would need prescriptions for in the US. Some are more expensive but others are vastly cheaper. I’ve been paying triple the amount here for a one-month supply of medicine though it’s still affordable and something I shouldn’t be without. Because of Mo’s little puke party and continued changing eating behaviors these past couple weeks I had a suspicion his stomach hitchhikers were getting worse and it was time to see what I could do. Mo doesn’t like to be picked up – that’s an understatement – so taking him to the vet seemed unlikely. I was praying that vet clinics in this part of the world were like human clinics and pharmacies: that they’d let me have drugs without a prescription and without being seen by a doctor.

My luck held! A week ago today I walked to town to the Correos de Costa Rica (post office) to check on why I hadn’t received a small box of bug oil repellent from Belize after almost two months! I also went to the vet clinic/pet supply store closest to the post office, to try and explain my situation. The situation being, that I’m madly in love with a street cat. He has “insectos en su culo” and no you can’t see the cat, but yes, I need drugs for him. This gentleman and his two other coworkers spoke not one lick of English. None. Luckily, I translated my request from English to Spanish for the post office and for the vet before leaving the house. I definitely needed it for both. (To be fair, I keep saying that my Spanish is getting worse the longer I stay here and the more I type in English but that isn’t true. The truth is, I do a pretty decent job in most present tense conversations. It’s the past and future verb tenses where I get stalled a bit, and don’t get me started on preterites and participles!) 

Two days after I bought and administered Mo’s dewormer pill I developed some mild stomach pain mid-morning that came on rather suddenly. Over the course of the last week I’ve had ups and downs where I felt better but not quite myself. Sometimes I feel clammy and warm for a  bit and then it goes away, or I’m more tired than usual and need a nap in the middle of the day. My appetite sure didn’t slow down but I did refrain from chicken wings (so far), as that spicy Caribbean buffalo sauce and deep fried meat would probably tear a hole right through me right now. There’s been a lot of soda crackers ingested. They are so damn boring and lifeless!

I’ve been Googling my symptoms and researching digestion and stomach and natural remedies and all the things and came to the conclusion it is most likely a mild stomach virus or parasites. Some scientists or natural healers believe humans should deworm themselves once in a while and not only have I not been doing that but I do eat a lot of raw seafood. Do your own research on that, but I am also ingesting natural foods and supplements that can rid the body of parasites if they’re present at very low risk to most people. For example, I am eating a huge amount of papaya and papaya seeds, raw garlic, and other parasite fighters, such as oregano oil capsules. That’s all healthy anyway so I’m not altering anything except making myself healthier in general. The other thing I’m trying is a small shot of hombre grande (quassia amara/bitter-wood) twice a day: it tastes like poison and is supposed to kill  parasites too.

Also, I’ve been living in third world countries for the better part of a year and eating local cuisine. It is not an infrequent situation where I am taking freshly cut fruit out of a man’s questionably hygienic hands who just carved up the delicacy with a questionably clean, sometimes rusty, knife. (Don’t panic, mom: let go and let god). I have a recent tetanus shot. I’ve had some Hep A vaccinations through the years though I sure wish I’d updated that one before heading to Belize in August, because then I could eliminate that food-borne illness now. I’m aiming for a shot in the dark treating the stomach issue the same way I treated Mo’s. Maybe we both have bugs in our butt. I’m always kissing him and petting him along with hundreds of other street animals. For the record, Mo is the ONLY one I kiss but that probably doesn’t make it any cleaner or safer. I know, I know. Why is he so cute then if I’m not supposed to hug and kiss him? Ah. Here’s the answer to a lot of questions, most of which relate to my romantic life. And speaking of my romantic life, I explained to my sweet, innocent mother last night when she wouldn’t stop asking questions about my tummy, and my massage therapist today because I just felt like he needed the additional information, my “coochie is clean!” My mom was asking a couple of obscure questions that led me to believe she was trying to delicately ask if her baby cougar had been out hunting. Not lately, babes, not lately.

Let me just say that my experience at the vet clinic last week and the pharmacy today, was far better than the post office. At both clinics I said in Spanish that I needed medicine to kill parasites or worms, and both stores sold each required medicine for very cheap. In fact, Mo’s was slightly more expensive than mine. How crazy is that? His two pills (one for two months in a row) was $8 USD and my ten pills (two pills five days in a row) was $4 USD. Meanwhile, the post office informed me that my box of the best all-natural bug oil repellent homemade in Belize is stuck in Costa Rican Customs and they want forms and money before they even think about releasing it to me. I’ll be lucky to see it before I head back to the US. Even then, I have no space to pack these bottles. Expensive lesson, but not so expensive that I am concerned. I would have been consumed by this before living in Central America but I don’t hold onto as many unnecessary things like I used to. Emotions, material items, we have to say goodbye and let some things go. The hardest things for me to say goodbye to will be in a few weeks. I will have to say goodbye for now to Costa Rica and my people here and probably a more permanent goodbye to Mo. 

I’ve learned such a huge lesson in the last seven months though about just being in the present moment and being grateful that an experience even happened, not focusing on that it’s over. One thing I fervently want to let go of are any parasites haunting me. They can get the heck out immediately. I’ve got plenty of memories and souvenirs going back with me, without taking a pet worm home – because you know which pet I’d take with me if I could!