Key Issues

Gross. I Can't Watch It...

And so I watched, glued to the set, for an hour.

In case you missed it, EATEN ALIVE will air again Saturday. And it will verify the veracity of many of the parasitic legends we have all heard, from the wife's chore of hand over elbow pulling tapeworms out of her husbands ass, to the discovery of tiny little worms surfacing on the eyeball of a man three years after exposure to the infant parasite.

Pictures? Oh, you must have pictures.

Elephantitis is actually caused by a parasite. Usually there is a "beautifully, harmonious relationship between worm and host." [Riiiiiiight.] Howevah... occasionally, there is a blockage of the lymph glands due to the invasion, and gnarly disfigurement occurs:

(I was nice; I picked a mild photo. Can't say as much for the -warning: nasty- site where I uncovered it.)

But the WORST...?! Remember in The Rundown when Mariana tells Beck not to piss in the waters of the Amazon, because the candiru would swim up his weewee? ...and then they'd have to amputate?

I thought it fiction. Comedic relief. It isn't. (Although, I am comforted by the fact that amputation is typically not necessary.)

Anyway, here's the little bitch (They are usually one to six inches in length; pic lifted from this site.):

What does it want you ask?! This, the world's smallest catfish and only vertebrate parasite, wants to swim up your peepee and anchor itself - with these little spikes it throws out - into your now bloodied tissues. It will then FEED on that blood and tissue. (Fortunately, it does prefer hosts with gills.)

I'll be traveling within the U.S. for a while me thinks. ...until these memories fade a bit.

(For the truly sick, I have provided grotesque surgical removal pics in the extended entry...)