Read Online I Stand Corrected by Eden Collinsworth - Free Book Online
Authors: Eden Collinsworth
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mouthfuls.
“The eggs hatch on contact with the fresh water. The free swimming parasites infect snails and emerge as larvae. And, here’s the thing … the larvae move in the direction of isolated motion—for example, a person wadding in the stream. What’s even more remarkable is that they’re stimulated by chemicals found in human skin. They enter through the skin’s pores and migrate to the liver where they develop a kind of oral sucker in order to feed from red blood cells and become worms. The worms produce eggs that pass through the bladder … and a next generation of parasites is eliminated into the fresh water by their host.”
I stared at him with disbelief. My hand—frozen in midair—held one-half of a tuna salad sandwich.
“Too much information?” he asked me.
“No, no … Listen, I can’t thank you enough for your thorough explanation,” I said sarcastically. “I’m especially pleased to have heard the details during my meal.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he suggested. “Neither the worms nor their eggs have been found in the brain or spinal cord.”
“What proof is there of that?” I asked.
“Autopsies,” he said without a trace of concern.
“Wonderful.
Very
reassuring,” I said. “Have you considered the fact that autopsies are fairly strong indications that deaths were involved at some point?”
“Listen, Eden, this trip isn’t going to work unless you change your attitude,” suggested my brother.
The nurse at the Centers for Disease Control was all about efficiency. She reached for a clipboard, affixed a single-spaced sheet of diseases, and—after reading the travel itinerary I handed her—began to check off an unsettling number of the little blank boxes: yellow fever, typhoid, poliomyelitis, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, and rabies.
“Are you a journalist?” asked the doctor as he was preparing to put me through the series of vaccinations.
“No,” I told him.
“I don’t understand,” he said, unsheathing the first syringe. “Let’s start with your right arm and we’ll switch to the other halfway. Why Rwanda? It’s a dangerous place—especially now.”
“I’m tracking mountain gorillas.”
“So, you’re a scientist.…”
“No.” I winced with the second injection.
“Sorry.… A researcher?”
“No.”
“Let’s have that one.” He pointed to my other arm. “I don’t understand,” he repeated.
I explained that I was tracking gorillas for no reason other than to track gorillas. The doctor pointed his syringe up, like someone who’d decided to hold off firing a pistol. The cotton ball he held in his other hand began to ooze alcohol.
“One last question,” he said with professional calm.
“Are you mad?”
“No, I am not mad,” I said in a deliberately level voice.
We stared at each other. Silence took on implication, and I thought it best to say something else, something that would make me sound self-aware but not overly defensive.
“Under the circumstances, I suppose denying it might be reason enough to believe I am.”
It was a fair statement, all things being equal. His furrowed expression relaxed. “Well, at least protect yourself from the sun.… Jesus, look at your skin. You’ll burn up,” he warned ashe swabbed my arm for a final inoculation. “And whatever you do, don’t go anywhere near the lakes.”
“WHAT ABOUT YOUR hair?”
It seemed a strange reaction when I informed my direct report at Hearst where I was going for the two weeks I planned to be out of the office.
“He made my hair sound hazardous,” I told my brother while we packed our supplies.
“I don’t think it’s your hair per se,” suggested my brother as he rolled his sleeping bag into an airless tube. “It’s more about the consequences of your hair.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Well … you have to admit you have a lot of it. And then there’s the color: it might be the first time the locals
“The eggs hatch on contact with the fresh water. The free swimming parasites infect snails and emerge as larvae. And, here’s the thing … the larvae move in the direction of isolated motion—for example, a person wadding in the stream. What’s even more remarkable is that they’re stimulated by chemicals found in human skin. They enter through the skin’s pores and migrate to the liver where they develop a kind of oral sucker in order to feed from red blood cells and become worms. The worms produce eggs that pass through the bladder … and a next generation of parasites is eliminated into the fresh water by their host.”
I stared at him with disbelief. My hand—frozen in midair—held one-half of a tuna salad sandwich.
“Too much information?” he asked me.
“No, no … Listen, I can’t thank you enough for your thorough explanation,” I said sarcastically. “I’m especially pleased to have heard the details during my meal.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he suggested. “Neither the worms nor their eggs have been found in the brain or spinal cord.”
“What proof is there of that?” I asked.
“Autopsies,” he said without a trace of concern.
“Wonderful.
Very
reassuring,” I said. “Have you considered the fact that autopsies are fairly strong indications that deaths were involved at some point?”
“Listen, Eden, this trip isn’t going to work unless you change your attitude,” suggested my brother.
The nurse at the Centers for Disease Control was all about efficiency. She reached for a clipboard, affixed a single-spaced sheet of diseases, and—after reading the travel itinerary I handed her—began to check off an unsettling number of the little blank boxes: yellow fever, typhoid, poliomyelitis, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, and rabies.
“Are you a journalist?” asked the doctor as he was preparing to put me through the series of vaccinations.
“No,” I told him.
“I don’t understand,” he said, unsheathing the first syringe. “Let’s start with your right arm and we’ll switch to the other halfway. Why Rwanda? It’s a dangerous place—especially now.”
“I’m tracking mountain gorillas.”
“So, you’re a scientist.…”
“No.” I winced with the second injection.
“Sorry.… A researcher?”
“No.”
“Let’s have that one.” He pointed to my other arm. “I don’t understand,” he repeated.
I explained that I was tracking gorillas for no reason other than to track gorillas. The doctor pointed his syringe up, like someone who’d decided to hold off firing a pistol. The cotton ball he held in his other hand began to ooze alcohol.
“One last question,” he said with professional calm.
“Are you mad?”
“No, I am not mad,” I said in a deliberately level voice.
We stared at each other. Silence took on implication, and I thought it best to say something else, something that would make me sound self-aware but not overly defensive.
“Under the circumstances, I suppose denying it might be reason enough to believe I am.”
It was a fair statement, all things being equal. His furrowed expression relaxed. “Well, at least protect yourself from the sun.… Jesus, look at your skin. You’ll burn up,” he warned ashe swabbed my arm for a final inoculation. “And whatever you do, don’t go anywhere near the lakes.”
“WHAT ABOUT YOUR hair?”
It seemed a strange reaction when I informed my direct report at Hearst where I was going for the two weeks I planned to be out of the office.
“He made my hair sound hazardous,” I told my brother while we packed our supplies.
“I don’t think it’s your hair per se,” suggested my brother as he rolled his sleeping bag into an airless tube. “It’s more about the consequences of your hair.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Well … you have to admit you have a lot of it. And then there’s the color: it might be the first time the locals
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