Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Pique!


I have officially been living in Paraguay for over a year, and I cannot believe how quickly it has gone by.  About a week before my one-year anniversary with Paraguay something I had been hoping to avoid for my entire service happened – I got pique.  Pique, or chigoe flea, is something I had never heard of before Paraguay and it didn’t exactly sound fun to me.  Our medical training book describes it as a tiny flea that burrows into the skin and starts producing eggs.  The result is a small white patch with a small black dot.   You have to take a needle and remove the egg sack.  I thought it was kind of cool so I documented my first ever pique removal!







My first removal was a great success! I don’t know if it seems that way to an outsider, but I was really proud. Some might say I even got a little cocky. Since Paraguay has a way of sensing when I am overly confident the country decided to knock me down a peg or two. My next few pique were AWFUL. One was in between my toes, so hard to get to, then one top of my foot, very little fat or thick skin to make it not hurt, and finally I got one next to a healing pique wound, it didn’t like being touched.  I have learned my lesson – pique is terrible. If I can finish my service with no more fleas laying eggs in my body I will be one happy camper!

Poor Copper has also started getting pique and she has it rougher than me since she has to chew them out of her feet.  This has also caused me to kick her out of my house since I don’t want any pique in my house just waiting to burrow.  The only thing they really do for dogs is put their feet in gasoline to kill the pique but I usually only notice them after she has chewed on them, creating open sores; I’m going to pass on pouring gasoline into my dog’s open wounds.  I think she appreciates that.