Woman returns from Malaysia holiday with three-inch parasite in her arm
Cascade News
A British woman returned from an exotic holiday in Malaysia with a sinister souvenir - a parasitic flatworm lodged in her arm.
Emily Buckley, 28, from Wrexham, Wales, told The Sun: "Everybody is shocked when they see it, but I feel really laid back about it all.
"I've heard horror stories of people dying from parasites; I know I'm in the best possible hands."
Doctors originally thought Emily might have picked up the parasite after heaping to nurse a macaque monkey back to health.
But now they think the most likely cause was contact with undercooked fish or meat.
She said: "In Malaysia all of the locals were telling me I should get it taken out but I was in the island way of life and I couldn't really be bothered.
"Every day it was just growing, but it wasn't painful so I didn't think to get it checked out."
When Emily returned home, however, she went to see her GP, who referred her to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where doctors also discovered signs of parasites in her gall bladder and her stool.
Emily is having the parasite removed today, and the operation will be filmed by the Discovery Channel for a documentary to be aired next March.
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