Re: My appt. at Harborview, Univ of Washington, Travelers & Tropical Infectious Disease Clinic

The black specs under old pocket microscope was hard to tell but looked like globs of blood or something. ..I went and bought an Olympus microscope....it is Mansonella perstans...not hard to see it is unsheathed and has bifurcated tail....lots of micr/macro images with which to compare online.

While far from an "expert", I was a little bit of a whiz in bio, and albeit an art major, I do have a BS, and spent many a day as a kid growing up in Florida, examining the flora and fauna, reptiles and amphibians...

Am waiting for lancets, slides, other stuff, so I can do the finger prick test myself and tests of blood. So hard, I'm on Soc Sec and have to wait till following month for money for more supplies. But I don't want there to be any doubt, I want it done accurately, so I can have proper documentation. During the worst times, when they "hatched" or whatever, end of Aug./Sept., I freaking bought meds...I was going crazy...so...I have them, too.

If anyone is interested, you can buy a digital AmScope for not much, or even one of those portable Celestron's and see for yourself. Sometimes it helps to just see what is actually there....alleviates some of the stress because now you know. Document.