Mayate

Every morning I find bugs floating in the pool. They range from flies, gnats, bees, wasps, dragon flies and various types of flying small beetles. One small beetle will swim to the bottom if he thinks you are after him. So suddenly in the last few days I've been finding these large black beetles and I asked neighbors what they are.

They call them Mayates and they bite and can make you real sick. Most of my neighbors generalize about creatures and are fearful of a number of things that are not harmful like snakes and spiders. One neighbor told me about a person that was bitten by a Mayate of a different color, became very sick for years and the medicine to treat it was very expensive.

I started to search and mostly found Mayate to be a negative racial slur but somewhere in there linked it with a Vinchuca who is a carrier of whatever results in Chagas disease. Chagas sounded exactly what my neighbor described. So I ended up unsure if this beetle could transmit the disease or just a similar one. Anyway an interesting search adventure with some Chagas info below and a YouTube video song which shows the importance.  It may be a problem here.

In Chagas-endemic areas, the main mode of transmission is through an insect vector called a triatomine bug. A triatomine becomes infected with T. cruzi by feeding on the blood of an infected person or animal. During the day, triatomines hide in crevices in the walls and roofs. The bugs emerge at night, when the inhabitants are sleeping. Because they tend to feed on people's faces, triatomine bugs are also known as "kissing bugs". After they bite and ingest blood, they defecate on the person. Triatomines pass T. cruzi parasites (called trypomastigotes) in feces left near the site of the bite wound.

Scratching the site of the bite causes the trypomastigotes to enter the host through the wound, or through intact mucous membranes, such as the conjunctiva. Once inside the host, the trypomastigotes invade cells, where they differentiate into intracellular amastigotes. The amastigotes multiply by binary fission and differentiate into trypomastigotes, which are then released into the bloodstream. This cycle is repeated in each newly infected cell. Replication resumes only when the parasites enter another cell or are ingested by another vector. (See also: Life cycle and transmission of T. cruzi)

A sick 9 year old neighbor

I have a sick 9 year old neighbor and I hope if it's as serious as it sounds we've caught it in time. Her dad worked for me about a year building my house and the whole family and I spend a lot of time together. She has always been extremely thin but with lots of energy and good in school. A little over a month ago she started getting depressed, not playing much and having crying spells. Mom was worried and asked me about doctors and I thought of Dr Rosa who has an office in town but also works at the free clinic where we live.

Dr Rosa sent us for blood tests at the local lab and was unhappy with the results so we went to the Cihuatlan lab a few days later. The diagnosis is that she has an imbalance of white blood cells which can be caused by a number of things including leukemia. Dr Rosa said she needed to have a blood marrow test at a hospital in Guadalajara. That would have been a very time consuming and expensive trip so we decided to get a second opinion.

Today we went to Doctor Crespo in Barra de Navidad because he was the only one I could think of and the family only uses Centro de Salud or Seguro Popular. Mom and sister in law immediately said he was expensive but I was driving so we went. Very nice doctor and he spent about a half hour talking, examining and going over her blood tests. His opinion was the same but referred us to the State Cancer Clinic in Colima which will be a much quicker and less expensive trip. He even told us how to get in without an appointment ... and charged us nothing. We'll drive up later in the week.

Yari on the beach

Yari, mom and baby