The Itch

I should be working. Actually, I should be sleeping, but am forgoing it at the moment to get ahead on my online courses so I don't have to lug my textbooks to Kenya, where I will attend a conference next week.

Instead I am scratching my ankles. Even yes, while typing, I am rubbing my ankles against the legs of my chair.

Two nights ago, I passed out on my bed with King Leopold's Ghost on my face. I was REM cycling when I should have been pulling my mosquito net down and tucking it in tight to sleep peacefully under a halo of permethrin impregnated gauze. Instead I woke up to rows of flaming mosquito bites punctuated by smaller and itchier black fly bites. The little bastards are probably passed out bloated somewhere in a post Thanksgiving-eque coma. Although no longer feasting on my blood they continue to drive me out of my f***ing mind.

For the past 48 hours I have felt no emotion or sensation other than extreme itch. I am slathered in hydrocortisone and still I itch, even my throat, my eyelashes, my blood (which may or may not now be coursing with malaria) itches without pause for relief. Mark my words, I WILL drink DEET to make my entire body poisonous. And if I live to tell the tale I will say, "I showed YOU, evil insects!" Until then, I try to kill them as they land on my touch sensor lamp, but the the light flashes on and off with every swat until my eyeballs buzz.

I did find that hand sanitizer provides momentary but genuine relief from itching. This discovery came yesterday when two kindergarteners had major accidents involving upset tummies and far away toilets. In the post-disaster clean-up, I hand-sanitized up to my armpits and made my assistant do the same. No one gets sick before Kenya!