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That afternoon, on our way back to Sally’s, the curse of the Himalaya grabbed me, and I made a mad dash for the nearest restroom. After I’d finished, I gave the toilet bowl a quick glance before I flushed it. By then I’d learned to always check my bowel movements for blood or mucus, the telltale signs of dysentery.

Oh My God! I thought, as I stared into the toilet bowl, I am going to die, and it won’t be from sweating to death or being riddled by bullets. What I saw in the toilet made my whole body feel weak. I flushed it and hurried outside.

At first I didn’t say anything to Larry, because I couldn’t bring myself to accept what I’d just seen. But the mental picture of it kept flashing in my head. If my days were limited, and that seemed to be the obvious though dreaded conclusion, I should tell him right away. I knew he probably wouldn’t believe me right off; but later, when it happened again, he’d see for himself, and then we would rush to the hospital. But from what I’d just seen in the toilet, it was already too late.

“Barb, how come you’re so quiet?” Larry asked as we continued walking back to Sally’s. “You looked kind of pale when you came out of the restroom. Everything OK?”

“Well no. . .No, not really,” I stammered.

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, see. . .I went to the bathroom and. . .”

“Yes?”

“And I think I’m going to die!” I shouted.

“So what’s new? You always think you’re going to die,” Larry answered calmly.

“Yeah, well this time it’s the real thing!”

“Why this time?”

“Because I looked after I went to the toilet and there were these giant worms in it! Giant, huge, clear worms! Do you understand what that means?”

“Yeah, you’re seein’ things.”

“To hell with that. I am not seeing things! They were there. Big, giant worms. I saw them as clear as day. And that means my intestines are full of them, and as big as they are, that means I’m doomed with a capital D!”

Larry didn’t respond right away. He kept walking, staring at me with an I-can’t-believe-you’re-really-that-dumb expression on his face.

“Barb, it’s impossible for a bunch of giant worms to live inside a person’s intestines,” he said matter-of-factly.

“But I saw them,” I shot back.

Neither of us said much after that, and the subject didn’t come up again until we were back at Sally’s. We fixed a spaghetti dinner that evening, and just as the first bites hit bottom, the urge struck me again. I ran for the bathroom and prayed that Larry was right—that I hadn’t actually seen the worms this afternoon, that this time everything would look normal.

I looked into the bowl after I’d finished, and again my body fell limp. There they were, just like before—the worms. Larry came into the bathroom and I stood back and waited for him to take a look. He seemed unconcerned when he walked in, and that calmed me. Larry will have a logical explanation for this, I said to myself, and everything’s going to be all right.

“OK, let’s have a look at those so-called giant worms,” he muttered. There was a hint of exasperation in his voice.

I pointed into the bowl, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, Larry said nothing.

“Can’t be,” he finally whispered.

My hopes took a nose dive.

“This just can’t be! Those worms are huge! An inch long and a quarter inch thick, each one. Man, you should be dead by now! Nobody can live with things like that in their stomach. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. But look, there they are and lots of ’em. Get your passport quick! We’re going to the hospital right now!”

The idea of entering a hospital in a strange country terrified me as much as the worms did. I thought about how the Australian fellow staying in the hotel room next to ours in Kathmandu had gone into the city hospital to be checked for dysentery and had come away with severely damaged intestines. The doctors had given him the wrong medicine. After that episode, I swore I’d never set foot in a foreign hospital.

“Barb?”

“Yeah?” I answered hesitantly.

“Barb, come here for a minute.”

I walked back into the bathroom. Larry had scooped a worm and stool sample into a jar to take with us to the hospital. He stood holding the jar up to the light, studying the worms.

“Tell me what you had for breakfast this morning,” he said.

“Tea, toast, and that weird grapefruit Ubon gave me.”

“What was weird about it?”

“Well, it’s hard to describe. Each section was made up of a bunch of these long, clear strands and—”

“And I bet they looked a lot like these worms,” Larry sighed, and both of us burst out laughing.

“You’re saved, kiddo!” Larry chuckled in relief. “Hey, imagine if we’d gone to the hospital with this stuff. They’d be laughing for months about the weirdo Yank with the grapefruit worms in her turds!”