what to do if you get bird poop in your eye
DROPPINGS
An essay by Gulchin A. Ergun, M.D.
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Icky is what he said. Then my darling husband delivered an out-loud, tonsil-bragging, uvula-flagging howl and continued his march to get charcoal.
"Don't pretend like you don't know me." I said. "Help me. Information technology got in my centre."
"You lot're on your ain, baby," he snorted. "Restrooms are upwards forepart."
"A bird due south&*t on my caput," I choked, weaving through the PVC pipes, fertilizer bags, buckets, and air compressors. "And that'due south it? Not even Kleenex? You lot could've gotten some bleach, fifty-fifty rubbing booze. We are in a hardware shop, but you just walk away? You didn't even point me to the bathroom."
I ran the h2o as hot equally it could get and squirted some bubblegum-colored liquid out of a soap pump busy with collywobbles and dirty fingerprints. Betwixt the correct eye fierce from the bird bomb and the left i burning in sympathy, I calculated the odds of a parasite transporting itself into my encephalon and balanced that likelihood against liquefying my cornea from the gizzard acrid and cleanser I'd just slathered nether my eyelids. I am a doctor after all. A gastroenterologist, and I recall the worst. Sure, I'll assess the odds, even focus on the positive, merely information technology'south to the horrible straight away. A parasite is now making a nest somewhere in my cerebrum. I have scratched my eye beyond repair, and my hubby of two decades volition ditch me when I need him almost. My futurity was here. No porch rocking in the Tetons in the autumn of our lives. I was dying. Deserted, blind, and paralyzed, victimized by a brain abscess, and destitute because no one gets disability for birds not wearing diapers.
Analogy by Nadya Shakoor
And so I splashed water in my eye. Over again and again and once more, and as hot every bit I could get it. I tried not to notice the exact composition of any fell from the sky, but given the grainy textures, it felt similar mustard seeds, blackberry pits, and cricket legs souffléd with worm slime. The choices were countless, and I permit myself worry about exactly what was going to kill me.
Like parasites. Worms infect yous when you least expect information technology. You could exist finally taking that trip downwards the Nile. Yous're hot and sweaty, decide to spring in, and while you're cooling off, schistosoma are splashing up your urethra. Soon they're kayaking up your blood vessels until they become stuck in the venules of your liver. And then they fix camp, become married, and commencement a family unit with their kiddie eggs destroying your lungs and the rest of your liver. Love sushi? Raw fish have rambunctious fluke that honey to paddle effectually the shores of your bile ducts, bottleneck them upwards and triggering autoimmune storms that cause cancer. And if your anxiety hurt from walking all mean solar day, whatever you do, don't take your sandals off in Louisiana or Vietnam. Strongyloides can clasp in between bare toes. Next thing you know, you accept larvae itch under your pare and you're coughing up worm litters.
My nemesis was probably a pigeon. And given that he didn't seize with teeth me, information technology was probably his breakfast or leftovers from lunch that were most to infect me, but and so over again, what did I know about birds? All I knew came from Hitchcock, Heckle and Jeckle cartoons, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a moving-picture show Matt thought was stupid, but I idea was kind of funny. In my travels, pigeons didn't dive-bomb you, they were pretty much vegan. The only messages I imagined scrawled on their ankles were diet tips by grannies in the park. Breadstuff and popcorn—the new good for you carbs. Only other than wasting muscle and generating potbellies, dried bread didn't kill you lot. What else did birds eat? I've seen pelicans dive for fish. I've watched seagulls make off with French fries. One time I saw a grackle peck at a packet of sugar until it broke open so he could lick the granules off the ground. I thought that was pretty smart. It fabricated me retrieve that calling someone birdbrained wasn't all that insulting.
Fifty-fifty if I didn't know what they ate, I remembered that guano is high in phosphate and nitrogen (thank you,Pet Detective) and practiced for fertilizing and spreading seeds. And somewhere, maybe medical schoolhouse, I vaguely recalled that seeds come with leaner or mucus that live in intestines and hitchhike to wherever they drop.
That means bugs: salmonella, psittacosis, E. coli, or mucus, similar histoplasmosis or cryptococcus. What else? Viruses … similar bird flu, St. Louis encephalitis virus, and, oh my God, Ebola.
I grew upwards in Ohio. I played in that dirt. A lot of people in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valley get histo. The spores love soil contaminated with bat or pigeon poop. I probably inhaled some spores. That would take triggered an upper-respiratory infection. Information technology would explain the calcified lymph nodes on my chest X-ray. It would be the nigh common crusade, but unless yous're immune-suppressed, shouldn't be a trouble. The next four? Treatable with antibiotics. But Ebola?!? That was bad, existent bad. That'southward the virus they make movies nearly. It airtight downwardly that Dallas hospital, even got a nurse infected despite precautions. Information technology has almost perfect manual efficiency. Leaves you dying a horrible merely colorful death, oozing claret from your eyes, brain, lungs, and peel inside days of exposure. No good-byes. No time. No treatment. Nosotros live in Houston. That bird could take flown down here afterwards a pit finish in Dallas.
No wonder Dad didn't let united states accept pets. He always said information technology was because my baby brother with Downs was more than vulnerable to infections. How my sister cried when he told us Tag-Along had to become. She loved that fuzzy large- nosed lemon pouf duckling she raised for a scientific discipline grade. We idea he was just mean when he gave him to a neighbour with a farm. We were so incorrect. He was just watching out for us.
So where was my bugger headed? He was probably making a beeline for my temporal lobe. After all, that's where my memory and emotion are stacked and stored. And if I had to pick the thing that matters to me most, I'd pick my memories. That's what I hoard, although I am proud of how proficient I've gotten about throwing things away. I've learned to ditch ticket stubs from about concerts (except my commencement, ninth grade, Deep Royal, 1972, Cloverleaf Speedway, Ohio) and pitch birthday cards (barring those from Mom and Dad, my sister, blood brother, married man, close friends, and aunts from Turkey). Just I have to exist the one doing information technology. Matt can vouch for that. He yet can't understand why I got mad when he threw away the cherry spiral notebook I kept from my fellowship, the one with all my study notes for the boards. "They're twenty years sometime," he said. "Y'all passed the boards. You'll never take them once again. Why would you salve them?" "I only do," was all I could say.
When this critter lays the foundation of his new abode, he'll do it past eating upwardly my retentivity bricks, 1 by 1. I don't care if he devours Denise Bloxton with her big barrel and Afro, wearing those cerise-and-blue-striped tube socks. She stole my patchwork suede bag in eighth course. When I got it back, she had her name all curlicued on the side. He tin can chew through the function where I threw up in Andy Katz's car and on his shoes afterwards drinking flaming shots of something orange-colored in college. He can take my fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-form schoolhouse pictures. In fact, I should request he have the lecture I gave at the American College of Gastroenterology in 2005—v one thousand people, videotaped for a DVD, and I was immortalized with the worst haircut of my life. People asked me if I was doing okay, since it looked similar I'd lost my hair to chemotherapy. Yup, have that 1, but I don't desire to lose the day I really jumped and screamed with happiness when I got into medical school. That'due south the one that should have been taped. And don't bore through my altogether on Vancouver Isle. I want to keep that first vacation with Matt. I don't want to forget how we plant all the restaurants closed on Sun night and had to celebrate with pretzels and three.two per centum beer we found at a gas station. And please, please, make a detour effectually our hike to Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls. It'south where nosotros found bound flowers confettiing a mountainside that surrounded a lake so impossibly blue, it was like staring through a sapphire.
Perchance the bugger could be open up to suggestions. I could propose he look at property in my frontal lobe. It'due south generally silent, probably a good place to raise a trivial microbial family. But come up to think of it, I do a lot of work there. Executive part more often than not: impulse command, all my prioritizing and strategizing. With juggling my patients, managing my staff, running a center, and teaching residents, it'southward and then much of what I do that my frontal lobe is probably twice the size of an average person's. I could give up l percemt and not miss it. Every bit for the impulsivity, well, I could use a fiddling liberation. Doctoring took that out of me. Maybe I could give him a garage flat and live with a little personality modify. I would similar to tell people exactly what I recall sometimes, maybe even say no sometimes. My buddy, the parasite tenant, could aid.
I may wonder about this for years, and fifty-fifty if I plow out okay, information technology could seriously ruin my matrimony. If it weren't for Ace (hardware, not detective), I wouldn't have known how Matt would react if I got ill. Perhaps this was his version of "better or worse" and I'd misjudged him? He does have lone-wolf tendencies. He's nevertheless perturbed I gave our number to his medical alumni association. "Now they'll know how to become concur of me," he'd snarled. He was a scrap feral in the beginning, simply I left nutrient out, and petty by little, I got to pet the animal, and eventually he stayed. But then, he'd probably say I got it all incorrect. He'd offering he did the stalking and got exactly what he wanted. That wouldn't surprise me. We're opposites, but that'south exactly what I like about him. And he makes me laugh. I'd miss that.
So who will write the obit, and who'll selection out what's on the tombstone? Matt hates that kind of stuff. I'll have to write information technology myself.
Gulchin A. Ergun,taken for granted, love married woman and sister, gastroenterologistwith a name no ane can pronounce … respected member of the medical staff died an ignoble death …
Wait, I'1000 wasting my precious time. Matt and I withal haven't decided where we should be buried. I know I bought those plots in Cleveland, but they were a great bargain. My sister bought six in a bankruptcy case, and it's where my parents are buried. All the kids took a pair. Where else can you lot buy prime plots in the best function of the cemetery with all the old trees? I thought if I died first, Matt wouldn't visit anyway. Graveyards aren't his thing. We don't accept kids, so landing where my siblings lived seemed like a good idea. And then someone might visit. But what if this parasite is a
slow grower and Matt goes first? He doesn't desire to be cached in Cleveland. He's from Cincinnati. There are no direct flights. Visiting him wouldn't exist easy. It would involve a layover in St. Louis or Chicago. This is where cremation starts making sense. Why limit the visits to a graveyard? Sift the spouse into a jar and take him with yous. I know TSA limits you lot to iii ounces of fluid on a plane, but are in that location restrictions on ashes?
Some say poop landing on your head is practiced luck, simply I'1000 not given to superstition. My family's pretty pragmatic. Nosotros didn't throw common salt over a shoulder or knock on wood. Nosotros may have had the blue charms against the evil center, but anybody from Turkey has a nazar in the house. Mom said it wasn't well-nigh luck. She said life was nigh fate, and that fate was written on your forehead when you were built-in, nosotros simply couldn't read information technology.
So that was information technology? My fate was checked by a bird blotch shaped like West Virginia?
That night in bed:
"What'southward wrong?"
"I'chiliad mad at you."
"Why? I didn't do anything."
"That's the point. You didn't do annihilation." "Nigh what? Is this like when you lot wake upwardly from some dream, and yous're mad at me?"
"No. I was awake, but you lot didn't help me."
"Yous mean dinner?"
"No, I mean at Ace."
"That's what you're mad at? Considering I didn't go to the bath with yous?"
"No, because I was dying of a encephalon abscess and you left me."
Guffaws.
"Don't laugh."
"I didn't go out you, and you don't get brain abscesses from pigeon poop. If anyone'due south going to get a brain abscess, it'southward me. I'm the one who got bitten past the tsetse fly in Africa. Call back that? Next to the Mara River. There's no vaccine for that. I have to worry most trypanosomiasis for the rest of my life. And what did y'all say about it? 'No Matt, it'south non a seize with teeth. Information technology'due south a zit.' Boy, were y'all incorrect."
And then, the wrap of his arm. "And so what do I demand to practice?"
"Osculation information technology. I'll forgive y'all if you kiss my eye." And he is obedient. "And, I might have been a little chip wrong. If I'chiliad not blind or paralyzed, I'll take intendance of you when you become sleeping sickness."
So he whispers in my ear, "Promise me something."
"Anything. No feeding tube, no nursing habitation? Only name it."
"Stop talking. You think likewise much. Now come here, my little south&*t head."
Gulchin A. Ergun, M.D., is a gastroenterologist and the medical manager of the Reflux Center & Digestive Disease Department at Houston Methodist Hospital. She is as well clinical associate professor of medicine at Houston Methodist and Weill Cornell Medical College. This essay offset appeared in Jet Fuel Review.
Source: https://www.tmc.edu/news/2017/05/doctor-ponders-dangers-bird-poop/