Day 2 of my self-imposed goal to share a daily story for the 46 days of Lent.

Scrappy-Doo (not his real name), 4 yrs old:  Scrappy’s mom works for our hospital, and today she showed me a picture of his cute little noggin’.  There was a lump on it.  He had another lump on his back.  ‘Could this be what I think it is’, I thunk to myself?  Only one way to know.

I had Mom bring him in, and my suspicion increased even more for a particular diagnosis.  It’s one that every missionary doctor in a third world country gets just a little bit excited to diagnose.

Visiting radiologist, Dr. Mark, threw an ultrasound on the lump.  ‘Hmmm, that’s weird, there’s color flow in it.  Could be a blood vessel.’  We all agreed, but in my heart I just knew that it wasn’t a blood vessel.  Or a cyst.  or an abscess…   It was a….

So Dr. Robyn and I prepped the little guy by giving him some, ‘Nighty Night juice’ via scream-inducing shot-in-the-thigh.  Soon, he was floating in a comfortable haze of cotton candy clouds and talking butterflies, completely oblivious to the scalpel Dr. Robyn used to cut a little hole in the lump.

We struggled to find it for a bit, but finally I made a lucky grab and out popped our prize…  It was a…

I am really trying to draw this out.  Buggy, right?  OK, fine, it was a HUMAN BOTFLY!  Dum duh Duh Duhhhhhhm!

Actually it was the larvae of a human botfly, also known as a maggot.  If you’ve read my blog for awhile, you’ll remember me writing about these in the past.  I’m not going to lie, it is so satisfying to intrude upon this little creature’s snuggly little bivouac in the skin, grab hold of his shiny, barb-encircled body, and drag him kicking and screaming into the daylight.  And then…  Squish.  Actually, the execution of the lil’ rascal is usually preceded by some photo ops.  But then, squish.

We were doubly blessed, because little Scrappy actually had a second botfly on his back, which Dr. Robyn snagged.  Scrappy’s mom was ecstatic, and she did the honors of the ‘Squish.’

Photo of the day:

Speaking of ‘squish,’ this little fella made a poor choice to hide out in this door frame.  We eventually found his mummified remains…

Bonus photo:

2 down, 44 to go.  Hasta mañana!