not worms, melanie. parasites.

last week, a stomach bug ripped through our house - leaving tons of dirty sheets and towels and underoos in its wake. i moaned and complained about washing and drying and then washing again. once one was healthy, the persistent little bugger would infect another. for. ten. whole. days.

once everyone was more or less poop-free, i rejoiced. you doesn't shout for joy when there are no more 3am "my belly hurts?"

then we noticed that amely's belly was distended. again. and she stopped vomiting, but not the diarrhea (i know, who really likes to talk about diarrhea? but it's life, huh?) we took her to the doctor who then sent for blood, urine and stool analysis. all of which revealed nothing.

medicine on top of medicine. no relief.

so we went to a new doctor. this doctor took one look at amely's belly and knew. she just knew that there were parasites in there. so we tested the poop again.

and nothing.

i've made the mistake of calling these germs worms a few times. apparently that's offensive. i can talk about diarrhea and vomit all day long, but parasites are not worms, thankyouverymuch, and please don't talk about them here.

we're still not sure what's going on with that belly. the poor kid is taking an anti-parasite, (you know a de-wormer) just to make sure and if that doesn't help, we'll take her back next week to see what the next step is.

this is one of the downfalls of raising kids in the tropics. there are illnesses that just are not common in the states that here are so common that a routine workup includes "worm" tests. we de-worm every six months. and we can never drink the water from the spigot.

but the benefits still outweigh it - you know, like the beach in february, low cost of living and slow paced lifestyle in general.