Day 19: Hey mosquitoes, bite me.

I may have exaggerated when I said that we walked home from our neighbor’s house with a trillion mosquito bites but when I said that Costa Rica just wanted to remind me I could be eaten alive at any moment…it was proven. It would be impossible to walk away with less than twenty mosquito bites from the swarms that were attacking us (prior to surrendering as wussy neighbors and asking for bug spray). Yesterday, we tallied the damage done…and yes, lots of bites. I guess football kept this off my mind (as much as possible, I scratched here and there and complained a bit but it was expected after the feeding). But today…today is a different story.

My skin is so bumpy at this point that if a blind person were to rub any part of me they’d probably find a message. (I’m guessing it would probably say something like, “don’t forget DEET next time idiot.”) I have approximately 20 bites on my left foot, 15 of which are on the sole. (And that’s just my left foot). From there they speckle around my ankles, up my calves, behind my knees, and even in the crease where my butt sits on my legs (how they got in there, I haven’t a clue). It doesn’t stop there though. My shoulders, elbows, ribs, neck and back weren’t spared, but I can handle carrying them around on all these places. I can’t, however, handle the feet.

From the moment I placed them on the floor this morning, the burning, swelling, tingling sensations began. And when we took a quick walk next door to see if they had some milk, it was like I was walking on path of coals to get home. I scratched and scratched (yes, I know, don’t scratch…but really? Have you ever had a mosquito bite you haven’t scratched? It’s easy to say, nearly impossible to do) and even though it didn’t provide any relief, it gave me flashes of satisfaction and chills. That was until I realized that the more I scratched, the more bites I uncovered. I’m not sure how mosquito bites work but it appears some may lay dormant under the skin only to surface if provoked by fingernails. Kind of like a scratch ticket. With each layer of skin I scraped off, I found a new number.

I slathered my feet in Tea Tree Oil which Mike swore would work but just in case, I also took a dose of Benadryl. I could care less if it put me back to sleep only an hour after being awake, at least I have no urge to scratch while snoozing. And that's exactly what it did. I crashed on our homemade couch for about three hours and didn't do much more for several hours after that. Pics to come of the damage...we forgot to download them from the camera but we couldn't pass up sharing them with you.