Being a scalp injury it looks worse than it is, but I did swear a little along the lines of “Ow what the f*ck you idiot!”

I’m posting this in motorsport because - well, it was the garage door and I was doing stuff with one of the cars. Cleaning it, admittedly, so not terribly racey. And it was my tow-car. But you get the jist - I continue to refuse to post touchy feely nonsense in here because frankly, that’s not what people want me to share with the world. So - if you catch me going on about relationships, what music I’m listening to, or the mood of my hamster then you can cheerfully beat me around the head until I bleed like in the photo. Ok?

No, instead I’ll just keep sharing the fun things that happen to me (racing, travelling) and the gross things (botflies, garage doors) and leave it pretty much at that. Oh, and maybe some techie, geeky stuff.

Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive.

You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito bite had been getting larger and sometimes painful. It was like a stabbing feeling in my back that would last up fifteen minutes. As time passed it would ooze a little blood, and the pain was getting sharper.

My first port of call was a local clinic (I no longer even bother trying to see a GP any more) where she poked around at it. This nurse however, is one of the sharper bunnies at this clinic and she did actually listen to my symptoms and take a good look. After I left she thought about it, rang the world renowned School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, and then asked me if I could go back later in the week. It might be a larvae that I had.

Cool! This would make a great anecdote!

Various checks were made, vaseline smeared on, and so on. But nothing popped out, and the doctor was left with just one course of action. Cut an X in my back and take a peek inside. Let me say now, that even with a little local anaesthetic, this still hurts quite a lot. Still, after a bit of poking about he found nothing, apologised and patched me up. He couldn’t dig as deep as he’d have liked to as there’s a risk of getting too close to the lungs, and so although there’s a possibility there’s something in there there’s not a lot, short of general anaesthetics and a surgeon, that can be done.

If something’s in there it’ll probably die now and my body will absorb it in due course. If there’s nothing there… well at least the pain’s stopped.

For information - the symptoms that made them think it might be a bug:

Pricking sensation at times.

Inflammation and a bump, but no real sign of infection such as pus.

Getting larger over time.

And I got the bite in the Amazon.

Anyway, now I have a nice X on my back to remind me of a great holiday ;o)

These samples tend to come in small glass vials.

And in a rucksack, small glass vials aren’t so clever. They were safely inside my washbag, but sadly I didn’t notice they’d broken and several pieces fell out onto the bathroom floor. Eventually they found my foot. I just thought I’d stood on a stone.

Now, people have questioned my bringing a first aid kit, but it was damn handy for cleaning up the wound and disinfecting, so once the blood was stopped there was no further pain or infection.

Other blood letting, caused today, was when I patted a tree to say something about trees. I never knew palm trees sometimes came with sharp spines. I thought I’d slapped some fire ants or something, but no… it was the damn tree. Gonna be more careful what I pat from now on.

This is probably my last post until at least Sunday night, so don’t worry about the silence!

Oh, and in just a week’s time I’ll be in New York for a very different, and much colder, experience. Then a week Monday I get home. And I’ll be about ready I reckon….