Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Matakenha numero cinco

I got another matakenha ("matah-kenya") in my foot. This is the fifth, and the first of this season. I get gauze, a clothespin, some matches, medical tape, a pair of fine tweezers, and some antiseptic ointment. I sit down on my bed and put my foot on a chair in good light.

The lesion is on the third toe of my right foot. It is swollen and purple at it's base, white towards the top with a tiny black dot at the apex of the bump. I sterilize the needle with a match, and poke into the tiny black dot. There is no feeling, there never is. I work the needle slowly under the skin, careful not to penetrate into the bump, and create pie-like slices from the tiny black dot out to the base of the bump.

After sliding the needle in and opening just two pie slices the egg sack pops neatly out, white and gooey. You can't get over excited at this point and yank on it or you can break the sack and dump dozens of little wormies all over your foot and back into the wound.

I press the skin of the bump down with the needle and squeeze out any pus and bodily liquid hanging out around the bottom of the egg sack--the part that's anchored in the wound and to my foot. With the tweezers I gingerly find the base of this little anchor and pull it out. I hold the egg sack between the tweezers and bring it away from my foot with satisfaction.

It's intact, one can almost see the miniscule eggs inside, and a huge improvement over the disaster of my last matakenha, which left my foot debilitated for days and required a thorough clean up to get all of the tiny white larvae that had exploded forth from the bursting sack. I'm proud of myself, and treat myself to a kit kat bar that my mom sent.

It's getting hot again. Ugh.