Experience: A leech was stuck in my nose for a month

IIt was September 2014. I had just started working as a front-of-house staff member at a posh Edinburgh hotel. I spent most of my shifts with a paper napkin pressed to my nostril, as I was prone to nosebleeds. I would soon find out why.

A few weeks earlier I was traveling in Vietnam. I rented a moped and had the time of my life driving around. I soon crashed, but luckily I was wearing a helmet so I only got a small bump on my head.

A few days later I started seeing intermittent bleeding from my right nostril. I assumed it was from the crash and didn’t think about it too much. I was 24 and too busy partying to take something like that seriously. I danced the nights away ignoring the persistent congestion in my nose.

Reality hit me when I got back to the cold of Glasgow. There had been no change in my nose so I went to the GP. The doctor told me it didn’t sound like anything to worry about. I was advised to put Vaseline on the area to keep the nostril lubricated and was sent on my way.

A week later I moved to Edinburgh for work. Then I started feeling frustrated with my constantly stuffy nose. I had no pain, but sleeping was difficult. I blew my nose to clear the blockage, but that only led to nosebleeds. It started to get especially weird when I showered. With all that humidity, I felt a thick, slimy thing moving down my nose.

I had a day off; it had been a month since I came back from abroad. My friend Jenny came from Glasgow to meet me for dinner. I was in the shower when I felt the all too familiar feeling, but this time I saw something hanging out of my nostril. I jumped out and ran to the mirror, frantically wiping away the steam. I saw a clot hanging out – and then recoiled in horror as I saw ridges running across a thick black body.

I ran out of the house and saw my friend screaming, “It’s a real worm!” Jenny knew about the problems I was having with my nose, but she didn’t believe me at first. I stuck my nose in the air so she could see for herself. Her mouth opened wide as she yawned and said, “Yes, there really is a worm in there.”

At first it was the most hysterical thing that had ever happened to us. We couldn’t stop laughing. Because it had been in there for so long, I felt very blasé about it. We called the NHS helpline. The call advisor cried tears of laughter on the phone because it was the most bizarre thing she had ever heard.

We went to the emergency room. The doctors were stunned and didn’t take me seriously at first. But when the nurse looked up my nose, she gasped. I was put on a gurney while they pried open my nostril with forceps. The doctors spent 30 minutes using various instruments to pry the leech out. Leeches release an anesthetic when they bite, which allows them to stay on a body longer, which is why I didn’t feel the pain before—but it was agony as the doctors tried to pull it out. When they finally succeeded, I felt a rush of cold air rush through the blocked nostril. It was like being in a nightmare, watching the leech held up, wriggling. It was longer than my finger.

I had been swimming a lot during the holidays, so we suspected that it probably came from that and that it had nothing to do with the motorcycle accident. The leech was put in a jar and sent to a specialist hospital in London for further examination. They were concerned that he might have transmitted more diseases to me. Suddenly something that was so funny seemed much more serious.

Fortunately, all my tests came back clear and I had no side effects. I was given the leech back in a jar and told to throw it away. The leech was rock hard because it had so much of my blood in it. I started to squirm just looking at it.

Now, ten years later, the story of the leech and me has become an anecdote whenever I meet someone new. I even had someone message me on LinkedIn recently asking about it. So while the leech was attached to me in a very physical sense, I think we’re still attached metaphorically. But I’m really glad it’s over.

As told to Elizabeth McCafferty

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