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.
