Sorry Guys. This Souvenir from the Holy Land is just for me.

When I thought about what I might like to pick up while I’m here, I was thinking more along the lines of Hebron glass, or a set of beautiful hand-painted dishes made by students at the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children, or even some traditional embroidery to support the women’s NGOs and associations that I admire so much.

Here were a few things that I didn’t plan on acquiring: Lyme Disease, the Rose of Jericho parasite, discoid eczema or ring worm. Yet, lo and behold! My once elegant left knee is now plagued with a spiral rash that is an identifying marker of all four scourges.

I feel relatively confident that I can 86 the Lyme Disease scenario. The Middle East is not an afflicted region. Plus, I don’t have any of the more obvious symptoms. But yes, I’m going to mention it to the doctor anyway. So, do not harp on me.

I had fairly well convinced myself that it was ringworm. Plus, one of my housemates is an intensive care nurse, and he seemed to think that was the culprit. By the way, ringworm is not a worm. It is a fungus that spirals out in a rash, hence the name. One of the most common ways that ringworm is transmitted here is through contact with infected cats. I don’t want to call out our garden kitten, Haitham, as the carrier, but her usual perch is along the length of my thigh and she tends to jam her claws into my knee if she gets startled. So, she will remain our most likely suspect. (BTW, I know Haitham is a boy’s name, but we didn’t realize that he was a she until a special night when the neighborhood tomcats arrived. Clearly the moon hit their eyes like a big pizza pie...Mystery solved.)

As of tonight, my ringworm diagnosis is now less definitive. I was discouraging one of my classmates from demonstrating too much “cat love” with one of our Arabic class strays, when my teacher caught sight of my blight. He said, “Oh boy. That looks like ‘Rose of Jericho’. You better get to a doctor.” The last four hours of Google surfing has yielded WAY more than I ever wanted to know about leishmaniasis, A.K.A; Rose of Jericho. Apparently, the sandfly is one bad ass mudder trucker. So, if I got bit than I’m hosting some critters in my knee. After looking at way too many pictures and reading journal articles about this affliction, I am 85% certain that it isn’t the case. But no doubt it will be one of the first things I ask my doctor.

One of my classmates noticed my burgeoning hypochondriatic melt-down and promptly informed me that is probably just discoid eczema. Awesome. That helped to put my mind at ease. Now instead of having something that is (relatively) quickly curable—albeit soooo gross-- I might be plagued by recurring flare-ups of this nonsense. But then again, it’s not itchy. Isn’t eczema supposed to itch? Then again-again, I put an apple cider vinegar compress on as soon as I saw it, so it dried up all the little pimples. Ahhhhh, Apple Cider Vinegar, is there nothing that you can’t do?

So that’s that. No doubt, I am now the grossest person you know. I hope you at least think I’m beautiful on the inside. And if you don’t, please...now is not the time to tell me. I’m still not over the really bad haircut I got a while back. I can’t take one more blow to my vanity.