I don’t know if this is technically Halloweeny…it’s certainly the grossest story I’ve come across at least since the Rat Kings. Check out the unfortunate story of Scottish citizen Daniela Liverani. After a sightseeing trip through the lovely countryside of Vietnam, Daniela noticed her nose was bleeding a bit. Not thinking much of it, after returning to Edinburg, she saw something sticking out of her nose as far as her lip as she stepped out of the shower. She thought it was a blood clot. But no. No no no NO NO NO NO NO…
This…3 INCH LEECH…was living in her nose. For maybe, like WEEKS.
…..
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
*ahem*
Said Daniela, “I saw him so many times but I just sniffed him back up. I tried to blow him out and grab him but I couldn’t get a grip of him before he retreated back up my nose.” I’m baffled that it took as long as it did to realize something was HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY WRONG: “I jumped out of the shower to look really closely in the mirror and I saw ridges on him. That’s when I realized he was an animal. My friend Jenny and I called NHS 24 and were told to get to accident and emergency as soon as possible.”
Yeah, no kidding.
Very freaked out doctors used a flashlight, tweezers and forceps to extract the slimy creature: “The doctor used a nose forceps to prise my nostrils open really wide – it was agony. The nurse and Jenny pinned me down to the bed. Whenever the doctor grabbed him, I could feel tugging at the inside of my nose. Then all of a sudden, after about half an hour, the pain stopped and the doctor had the leech in the tweezers. He was about as long as my forefinger but as fat as my thumb. He could move so fast as well, which freaked me out. I’ve no idea how he got up there but he’d have got bigger and bigger from feeding on my blood.”
Please, let me take this moment to reiterate…
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
…as it were.
The doctor informed Daniela that if they had waited much longer the leech could very well have eaten its way into her brain. In relation to how this happened in the first place (seriously), Mark Siddal, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and an expert on leeches said: “Daniela could have picked up this leech from water in Vietnam, if she had been swimming. “Or it could have gone in through her mouth, as she was drinking water. Even though it was there for around a month, these leeches don’t grow all that quickly, so it wouldn’t have been much smaller when it went up there. It would have been quite sizeable. It’s interesting that people don’t feel these leeches go up their nose.”
Yes…interesting. Erg. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Sleep tight. Wear nose plugs. Especially in third-world countries.
