There's a FLEA in My Toe!

For the first time, I've had the "privilege" a Know Think Act need first hand when I found a chigoe flea festering in my own big toe this week.

Here in Uganda, most people call these parasite "jiggers." Last week, I thought I simply had a small splinter underneath the joint of my big toe and left it alone. However, after lots of discomfort, I checked again and found a big ol' black bubble in the same spot. No doubt about it - I had a jigger. I had likely contracted it when I was in the rural village of Kyakayombya assisting with handing over the well that I blogged about last week.

Jiggers are usually found in dusty areas. They burrow in your feet, grow and lay eggs, and then those eggs continue to fester and drop to the ground. Unfortunately, they can become infected easily and can cause severe damage to your feet if left untreated. Many people in East Africa contract jiggers because they are walking around barefoot or with flimsy shoes that do not adequately protect their feet. Children may also get jiggers that burrow in their hands because they play on the ground so often.

My jigger had grown quite a bit so getting it out was a painful process of lancing the wound and squeezing the jigger out completely. They get very long as they grow. I nearly lost my stomach and all the color in my face as I saw millimeter after millimeter of jigger coming out of my toe.

The start of jigger diggin'

Here in Uganda, we've joked about how I must need to bathe more (I'm bathing everyday in Uganda, by the way...unlike twice a week in Namibia), but jiggers are pesky parasites that don't simply slough off with a good foot scrubbing.

While I had access to adequate resources and medical care in order to remove the jigger and keep the area sterile, many people here do not. They may lack money for treatment or live too far away from a medical clinic. They may not understand the consequences of jiggers and thus leave them untreated. My jigger was awful enough - I can't imagine having countless festering jiggers burrowed in my feet like many children and adults here do.

So, in honor of TIA Tuesdays:

Digging a festering jigger out of my foot. TIA.