Pink Boots and a Machete Read Free

forearms were oddly disfigured was concerning, but it was the wounds now covering my thighs that screamed, “Something is freaking wrong!” I was so upset about the open sores and inability to dress myself that I didn’t even notice the long red streaks leading up to my heart. Yes, folks, as I would soon learn, I was on a fast track toward death.
    Making my way out of the jungle meant days of hacking through dense forest, something I couldn’t do without holding a machete, so I hired a villager to clear the way. The people in the village looked at my blistered hands with repugnance; my attempt to cover them in silvery white lotion and bandages had only made them look more ghastly. I would spend the next 48 hours with my hands suspended in front of my chest as I made my way back to Georgetown, Guyana’s capital.
    Once there I went immediately to the local hospital, where dogs and chickens outnumbered patients in the waiting room. The doctor brought me into a private room with busted-out windows and asked how I had burned my hands. The dog staring up at me looked puzzled, too. I explained that the swelling and blistering all began from tiny cuts I had acquired during the expedition. He proceeded to apply a silver cream used to treat burn patients. Severe burn patients. I could have stopped him, but at that point I didn’t think it could hurt. Its only effect was to make my hands look like they belonged to a deformed tin man.
    He then walked over to a little table where several open (and quite obviously used) syringes lay on a dirty tray. When he picked one up and announced, “This shot of calcium will do the trick,” I knew it was time to get out. Fast. The flights back to the States were all booked; however, as this was a true medical emergency, the airline found me a spot on the plane (I actually think the clerks could no longer bear to look at me). Once back in the States, I was not allowed off the plane until a wheelchair escort arrived. Apparently, I looked incapable of making it on my own.
    Odd, I thought, as the problem was my hands and not my feet, but rolling out of the plane would mark the first time during the entire ordeal that I was scared. Not scared that I might die; I was still blissfully unaware of that danger. I was scared of what my mom would say.
    You see, my mom wasn’t exactly thrilled with my decision to go explore one of the most remote and unknown regions of South America. My overprotective mother, who had cried and begged me not to go, stood there crying once again as she looked down at my balloon hands. Seeing me wheeled off the plane had just fueled the drama. The very thing she had repeatedly harped on was that if anything went wrong, there’dbe no hospitals around. I still hate it when my mom is right. More than that, I hate to admit it. So as I was wheeled up to her, her pale, tearful face watching me in horror, I wished I was back in the jungle figuring out how to brush my teeth. As we headed into the emergency room, I assured her that I would be fine. I could see she didn’t believe me and waited for the words “I told you so” to come flying out of her mouth. But staying true to her Cuban woman’s persona (that of a martyr), she did something worse. She said nothing.
    After several physicians inspected my bloated hands and scratched their heads, medics from the U.S. Army Special Forces were brought in. The SF medics seemed just as puzzled, however, and, before leaving, photographed my hands for reference on the off chance they’d confront such a condition again. I continued to reassure my horrified mom, until we heard the doctor telling the nurse, all too loudly, that this was the worst case of systemic blood infection he had ever seen. To Mom he added the words that may have cost her ten years of life: “If she had been delayed by just one more day, your daughter would have died.” I apologized to my mom and then (in my head)