There are plenty of bizarre occurrences in nature. From parasitic fungus that turns its hosts into living sculptures or zombies, to carnivorous plants that look like something from another planet. And let’s not even get started on the horrors of the deep oceans. The world is strange. And it feels even stranger when those things affect humans. Surgeon Hari Priya Bandi must have felt similarly. What was a biopsy to examine a supposed tumor, became something out of a horror movie as she pulled a three inch roundworm from the patient’s brain.
The patient, a 64-year-old woman, was admitted to the hospital after complaining of abdominal pain and diarrhea for several weeks. There were also abnormalities found in her liver and lungs. She also began suffering from depression and memory problems. After an MRI, a bright spot on her right frontal lobe was assumed to be a tumor. It wasn’t supposed to be where a parasitic worm had decided to make its home. But sometimes the world is stranger than fiction.
“We don’t find things that are surprising, and when we do, that’s just unheard of. I then picked it up and just went, ‘Look at it, what is that? … It’s moving. Let’s take it out. There was a moment for me for just feeling a bit nauseated,” Bandi told Channel 7.
Heebies Is Having A Party With Jeebies For This One
Infectious disease expert Sanjaya Senanayake was called in to assess just what they’d found. “It’s not meant to develop in her. It’s meant to develop in small mammals and marsupials. So she was an accidental host.” Normally, roundworms infect the brains of pythons. This is the first time it has ever made the jump to a human.
Apparently, the patient often collected native vegetation from a nearby lake to use in cooking. At some point, she’d ingested the eggs of the parasite. Given this is the first time a roundworm has infected a person, the hospital is keeping a close eye on her recovery. Though the increasing rate of infections jumping from animal populations, Senanayake is warning we may see more of these infections as time goes on.
Talk about giving us the willies.
