Metamorphosis

I s a b e l l a M a c l e o d

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© 2015 Isabella Macleod. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/11/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7327-6 (sc)ISBN: 978-1-4969-7328-3 (hc)ISBN: 978-1-4969-7326-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903510

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 ..........................................................................................1Chapter 2 ........................................................................................18Chapter 3 ........................................................................................36Chapter 4 ........................................................................................58Chapter 5 ........................................................................................78Chapter 6 ......................................................................................100Chapter 7 ...................................................................................... 115Chapter 8 ......................................................................................136Chapter 9 ......................................................................................149Chapter 10 ....................................................................................168Chapter 11 ....................................................................................184Chapter 12 ....................................................................................203Chapter 13 ....................................................................................223

About the Author ..........................................................................239

1

CH APTER 1

“Please, God, make it stop. I beg you, whatever this is, please help me now!” I was on my hands and knees in front of the bathroom sink sobbing hysterically with my eyes closed and my palms outstretched to the Lord, begging for mercy. I was hyperventilating, completely terrified at what was going on with my body, which had become not my own. It all felt so surreal, like I was in some bad sci-fi movie—Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. I staggered up to the mirror with my eyes wide open. They were blood red from all of the crying I had been doing for the last two hours. My whole body felt like something was trying to eat it. I felt biting everywhere. I looked in the mirror, and I could still see the spherical shapes running across my face and up and down my arms. The sore I’d had on my cheek grew to three times bigger than it had been earlier that week, and now the cheek itself was all swollen, too. I looked down at my hands and legs and saw these black metallic-looking specks, almost like dirt, popping out everywhere. White fibers that looked almost like grey hairs but thinner were coming out of my fingertips.

I am going to lose my mind! What the hell is this crap coming out of my body? I need to go to the emergency department now! I ran down the hallway to my husband, who was standing there talking to my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law Thelma in my huge great room. They all paused and looked at me warily.

I looked at them and started to cry. Thelma was a nurse like I was, so I said to her, “I do not know what the hell is going on here, but look at my face! Can you see the little circle-like things running across my face and arms?”

Thelma paused, looked, and said, “Yes, I do.”

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“Do you see where my temple is, it looks all indented or something?”She said, “Yes, I see what you mean. Well, you better go and get it

checked out, and this time, stay! Don’t worry. We will look after the baby and William for you.”

I thanked her and walked over to my mother-in-law, who gave me a big hug and said, “You’ll be all right, dear.”

With that, Philipe said, “Come on, Miranda; let’s go to the hospital.”I had already gone to the hospital earlier in the afternoon, when

the biting sensation started, but now, all this stuff was coming out of me and I was scared to death! I had had a horrible day, by anybody’s standards. It was grading day for my son. We had just gotten home and I heard, “Mom, come quick into the basement!” When I went down to see what was happening, the furniture was literally floating in the basement. I was horrified and quickly called my husband. He called our friend Donald, who came right over with a sump pump, but it was too late; the main water line to the house from our well had ruptured and it had all backed up into our basement. The water was spouting out like a fountain onto our well-manicured front lawn. My husband arrived home. We had already called the insurance company, and they had sent over a clean-up crew, who were boxing and labeling everything. I was getting a backhoe in to dig up the broken line and fix it.

Earlier that morning, I was on my way to work at 6:00 a.m., as I was a nurse at a day surgery. I felt sick as I was leaving home. The sore on my cheek was way bigger, and I could not cover it up with makeup. I had driven all the way downtown to work when I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Screw this! I am not working a 10-hour shift today looking like this.” I then called in sick. I felt very guilty, as it was late calling in for work. I did not know what I was thinking even contemplating going, as I felt terrible. I then came home to the huge disaster in our basement. As the day progressed, with people coming and going in our home, I started feeling worse and very bity, as well as extremely emotional, and I did not know why. I usually handled stressful situations quite well. That day, I felt like an emotional basket case! I called to my husband midafternoon to come into the house, and I started crying to him about how I was feeling. I wanted him to go to the hospital with me, but he coldly refused. I said, “You don’t have to be here; the other guys know what they are doing. I am really not well,

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and I have been sick for weeks with these sores on my face. There is something very wrong with me!”

He said, “No, Miranda. I need to be here. I will go get Isabella at the sitters. You go to the hospital.”

I was in hysterics leaving the house. I cried all the way to the hospital. I walked into the emergency department and sat down. My name was called, and I walked over and chatted with the paramedic. I explained all of my symptoms, which sounded pretty strange. I told him that I had these blue fibers that had come out of my nose. I explained that I had been to dermatology and that they did not know what it was. I told him about having sores that did not heal up on my face, even after rounds of antibiotics for five months. I said that I had tried some naturopathic silver the previous week, which had healed most of the sores up, but then today, the one big sore got worse. I said jokingly because I was feeling embarrassed, that it felt like something, like mosquitoes, were biting me all over.

The paramedic looked at me sympathetically and said, “Look, I know it sounds weird, the biting thing, but my girlfriend had an allergic reaction to something, and she felt the same way. It sounds like you need a dermatologist.”

I told him that I had already seen one. “They did not know what was wrong, and that is why I am here. Plus, the biting thing is all new, and it takes months to get in to see a dermatologist.”

He said, “Well, you are going to probably have a long wait, as this is not an urgent matter.”

I then said, “Well, maybe I will check out a walk-in clinic then and come back tomorrow if I am no better, as I am not up for a six-hour wait today.”

He said, “Good idea.”I then got up and left. I drove home, still very upset and feeling no

better. When I got home, the baby was there waiting for me, and I was very frustrated with my husband, who did not seem to give a crap about what I was going through. He seemed more concerned about the well.

So, there we were, entering the emergency department again. It was very busy. I had never been there before, as it was a new addition and I would have to be half dead to go to emergency because of the wait. So I registered yet again, and the paramedic said, “Oh, you were here before, I see.”

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I said, “Yes, I was, but I am feeling worse and here to stay this time.”After registering again, my husband, Philipe, and I hunkered down

for a very long wait. As we were sitting there discussing the nightmare of our house that day, I looked down at my hand and noticed this black thing had popped out by my thumb. It almost looked like a spider. It just popped out of nowhere, and I said, “What the hell is popping out of me now! Do you see that on my hand, or am I totally losing it?”

He said, “Oh no, I see it.”I picked it up and looked at it more closely. It was a bunch of fibers,

black this time and all intertwined. The way it was shaped, it did resemble a small spider. Philipe just looked at me very strangely and folded his arms. “When the hell are we getting in to see these damn doctors? We have been here for four hours.”

I felt sorry for both of us, as we both had had a very stressful and long day. Finally, our name was called and we saw the physician. After I told him my story, he did not know what to think. He said that he would give me something for the biting sensation—Atarax, a drug that I knew well, as I worked in dermatology for four years. He said that he thought I needed an emergency derm consult because it took almost a year to get in to see a dermatologist. He also gave me a steroidal cream for the itching as well. We did not leave until 2:00 a.m. We were exhausted, and I was still being bitten to death, so I happily went to a 24-hour pharmacy and downed the Atarax, which mercifully knocked me out. When we got home, Philipe’s mother, Sharon, was asleep and so were the kids, thank God, as our baby did not sleep well most of the time. I stripped off buck naked and lathered the steroid cream all over my body. As I did, I noticed the black metallic specs coming off of my legs.

So I showed my husband, and he said, “I don’t know what is going on with you, Miranda. Just put some towels down on the bed and go to sleep.”

I lay down on top of the towels, buck naked with no comforter on, quite thankful that it was almost July, and fell into an exhausted, drug-induced sleep. I woke up the next morning, and when I looked, there were even more black metallic black specs all over the sheets from where my body had lain, head to toe. I was almost hoping that the previous night’s events were part of a bad nightmare and when I woke up, none of it would be real. I decided to hop into the shower before the baby woke

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up. I was still feeling the horrible biting sensation. It felt like something was biting my ass off! I thought that I was going to lose it from the biting and the stress, so I popped another Atarax. When I was in the shower, I started crying. I had my head pressed against my see-through shower with the body jets pounding on my flesh. Philipe came in and said, “Are you all right?” He was looking at me sympathetically.

I said, “No, I am not okay!” I started crying even more.He said, “Just take another pill and go to bed. I will put the baby

at the sitter’s, okay?”I said, “Okay, thank you.” I felt guilty about stressing my husband

out, even though I was the one who was miserable. That was the way that I had always felt in our marriage, especially lately, and for good reason, as I was sort of seeing another man.

Alejandro was always on my mind lately. I was a little obsessed with him. I could not stop thinking about him. He was tall, six feet five inches, like my husband, with jet-black hair, big hands, and big brown eyes. He had a devastatingly attractive smile, perfect white teeth, and a hint of a Mexican accent. His mother was Mexican, but his father was Caucasian. He was as intelligent as he was handsome. He was employed with at a large computer company as an information technology executive, and God help me, he was an American with the attitude to match. What a combo! Boy, did I know how to pick ’em! He was like my dream guy! I was extremely attracted to him, like no man I had ever met before. I was smitten at first sight.

I remember the night when we met. I had been at my sister-in-law Thelma’s, with my other friend Rebecca for dinner. Philipe and I were not getting along well at all then. We had a horrible fight on the way to his sister’s. It was a continuation from a few days before. Philipe was having some kind of midlife crisis just then and was very unhappy with his job as a general manager of a big construction company. He had been paid very well the last five years. Philipe had left a very good job with another company and started with a smaller one. He had been promised all kinds of things, like profit sharing and huge bonuses. He had worked very hard and had built this small company into an empire. When he requested the shares that he had been promised, they just kept putting him off. Philipe was acting very strangely lately and had become abusive to me as well. He even accused me of stealing his RRSP money, for no reason whatsoever. He had taken money out and

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wanted it put into a savings account. I had put it into mine instead of our joint chequing. I wanted to keep the money separated, so as not to confuse paying our bills. Philipe went crazy. He demanded that I take the money out of my savings immediately. I was so appalled that I left it in there just to spite him. He then stole my bank card two days later and put the money into his private savings. The war was on! I waited until he was asleep and took his bank card. I was able to guess his PIN number because I knew that he always liked a specific number. I stole the money back and changed my PIN on my own bank card so he could have no access. He was so enraged when I did this that he came home early from work to scream at me. I was supposed to pick up our daughter at day care at 11:30 a.m., and he was outside dismantling our Lincoln Navigator, so I had no vehicle to drive to pick up our daughter. He told me that he was going to sell it that afternoon. He was acting like a crazed lunatic. I tried to reason with him, but he would not listen. I then proceeded to threaten him with the fact that I was going to go up and down the street and ask our neighbours for a lend of their vehicles in order to pick our daughter up. When I said this to him, it was like something clicked in his brain about the absurdity of his behaviour. He walked back over to the Navigator, put it back together, and promptly left our home.

Our fight on the way to dinner was a continuation of this. Philipe informed me that he wanted a divorce. I was astounded and devastated. What had happened to the man I loved so much? What had he turned into? All through the dinner, I was so upset, and afterward, when I was talking to just the women, I burst into tears. They all said that everybody fought with their spouse. I had said that this was different; he was really acting abusively and doing and saying bizarre things. Little did I know what to expect from the rest of that evening at the time. I am glad that we are not able to foretell our future, as it would be stressful to know the bad things that life has in store for us …

My thoughts shifted back to the present. I think that I was definitely waterlogged from the shower, but it was helping the itching and biting sensation. I started to feel groggy from the Atarax, so I got out of the shower and lathered myself up. I then put another towel on the bed and, lying there naked, and fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up, it was 6:00 p.m.

I walked down through the house still naked with cream all over

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my body. What a sight I must have looked. I looked like one of the old dermatology patients we use to lather up naked with steroidal cream and then wrap up in gauze tubing like a mummy. I just never thought that I would be the one looking like that. I grabbed some plastic baggies and of course more wine, to keep my sanity. I was so stressed. I went back to my room, called my mother, and told her everything that was going on with me. She felt terrible for me, but she did not know what to say about the material that was coming out of my body.

I said, “I think that I have this Morgellons thing, Mom, as it is matching my symptoms.”

My mother knew what I was talking about, as I had mentioned Morgellons to her a few weeks earlier when I was trying to figure out what was going on with me. I decided that I was going to do a little more research on what it was and the treatments for it. All I knew was that all hell broke loose when I started taking silver. I kept upping the dose, as it was healing my face up. I also had a lot more energy when I was taking it. So I decided that I would drink a whole bottle of the stuff.

“A whole bottle?” my mother said. “You should not have done that.”I said, “No kidding, Mom. I am really sorry that I did now.

Trust me!”“Well, don’t take anymore then, for God’s sake!” my mother

exclaimed.“Hardly,” I said. I decided to let my mom go, as I was in no mood

for a lecture that night.The biting sensation was getting on my last nerve, so I decided to

call my sister instead. My sister Lorraine immediately got on the Net with me, and we started researching Morgellons.

She said, “I think what you had is called a herxheimer reaction.”“What is that?” I asked.“Some of the people use silver as a treatment for Morgellons, and

whatever is in your body, it caused a big die-off. This causes all of the parasites or whatever to die, and then all of that stuff comes out of you, fibers and black specks. It sounds just like what you are going through, and it says here on this website that nobody knows what causes it. It is a brand-new illness, and so far, there is no cure either.”

“Great,” I said. “Well, that just sucks.”“Well, there are treatments you can use—Epsom salts or clay baths.

They recommend your body be alkaline as well, and it says that it is good

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to get some naturopathic antiparasitics and antifungal supplements, too. I took a huge swig of wine after hearing this information. I thanked my sister and told her that I loved her and that she was a huge help. I hung up the phone and Googled treatments for Morgellons. This website came up with all kinds of body sprays, cleaners for your home, and clay lotions. I sat there and ordered six hundred dollars’ worth, half drunk on wine and wrecked on the Atarax. Philipe would be pissed at me, but I really did not care. If I had to live with this, I was going to do everything that I could to help myself. I eventually passed out, thank God!

When I woke up the next morning, I took a shower to wipe the cream off of my body and I started drying off in the mirror. I was drying my hair with the towel when I noticed these things coming out of my hair. They looked like white cotton balls. So I frantically started pulling them out of my hair until they were all gone. I also kept seeing those little spheres running across my face. It scared the crap out of me. They were the same as the ones that were there two days before when I went to emergency. The spheres were also running up and down my arms and legs now. I noticed that my forearms or inside of my elbows were all swollen. I decided that I was going to save these things that were coming out of my hair to show the dermatologist when I saw her. I glanced at my face to check out the welt that was still on it. It was a bit better than before. What the hell is happening to me? I was starting to freak out again. I felt like something was taking over my body and trying to eat it at the same time. I suddenly felt pain in my wrist and a swelling in my neck. I then noticed that this swelling in my neck had started moving up towards my face. I quickly grabbed my video camera and tried to videotape the moving swelling. I started crying and screaming to my husband; he did not come. I then bolted through our huge house down the hallway through the great room and past the kitchen and family room into the guest bedroom where I found my husband sound asleep with our daughter with him in bed.

I said, “Philipe! Philipe! Please wake up and look at my arm. It has this big swelling on it, and it is hurting very badly, like something is trying to bust out of my wrist. Then this swelling moved up here to my neck. Please look at my neck here where it is all swollen. Do you see it? Please help me! I am going to lose my mind!”

Philipe was very groggy. He went into another dimension when he

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slept and was barely coherent when he first woke up from a nap. He looked at my arm and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t really see much.”

I started to get angry at him for minimising what I was saying. I hollered, “Please wake up now! I need a distraction. Do you think that I should go back to the hospital?”

Philipe said, “No, just wait till you get to dermatology next week. Go take some more pills or have a glass of wine and try to calm down!”

I told him that I was so scared and that this was all so surreal. I went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass to go with it. That was the answer to everything with my husband—booze. You got a problem; have a drink. I decided that I was going to videotape this swelling, so I would have some proof for my family doctor when I saw her. Otherwise, I knew that she would not believe me telling her about this stuff coming out of my body, not to mention the swelling crawling around me. It looked and sounded unbelievable, like a bad B horror movie. I knew that she would think that I was losing my mind and probably having a nervous breakdown or something. As a nurse, I would think the same thing if I had a patient saying these things to me. So I lathered the cream all over my body and took some more Atarax. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was around 6:00 p.m. I did not want to get out of bed for fear of what I would see, so I just lay there deep in thought. This was the worst Canada Day that I had ever experienced in my life. I will never forget this one for sure, I thought.

I was so glad that William had left the day before for summer camp for a week, as I would never want him to see me like this. I burst into tears and then called my sister again. We again started Googling everything that we could on Morgellons and the treatments for it. Lorraine and I were on the phone and the Net for hours. Afterwards, I yelled to Philipe, and he came down to the bathroom. I showed him the stuff that I had removed from my hair and the spheres running all over my body.

Again, Philipe said, “Oh, I really do not see much.”With that, I exploded, and I said, “Well, you must be bloody blind

then! I am going to go see my friend Jennie.” She was a nurse and shot straight from the hip. She would not lie to me, and I needed a professional opinion as well. So I called her up, explained my bizarre situation, and drove like a psycho over to her house. I went upstairs to

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her room, and I showed her my swollen arms and said, “Do you see the swelling, Jennie?”

She said, “Yes, I do.”“Have a look at these fiber-like things coming from my fingertips.”Jennie said, “I do see what you see as well, as weird as it is. You are

not crazy, Miranda, or seeing things.”I said, “Thank God because I am freaking out and Philipe is just

like, ‘Oh well, whatever.’ What an asshole! He is making me feel like I am seeing things or something.”

“Well, that’s a man for ya,” said Jennie.We both laughed at that comment.I said, “Thank you so much, Jennie,” and gave her a big hug. “I

think that I am going to lose it with this biting. I cannot wait to see derm.”

“I bet you can’t,” said Jennie.I returned home and went straight to Philipe. “Well, Jennie saw

everything that I did. I think that you had better get some glasses for Christmas.”

Philipe just shrugged his shoulders and did not seem to care. What a big jerk! I stripped off again and took more pills, as I was still being eaten alive. I still had this horrific anxiety. I wished that it would go away. I did not feel like myself at all. It must be the drugs, I thought. I fell asleep and woke up again around 8:00 a.m. I played with the baby, whom I did not see much of all weekend. I walked into the foyer and opened the door to get some fresh air. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my reflection in the huge mirror hanging to the right. There was some gold, glittery stuff on my forehead. It looked a bit like gold dust. I pulled back my hair and said, “What in the name of sweet Jesus is coming out of me now.”

With that, I hollered to Philipe again and showed him. When he saw that, he did pause and looked at me strangely. He said, “Maybe you are an alien,” and laughed at me.

I wanted to claw his eyes out when he said this. He was laughing at my stress and anguish. “What kind of a husband are you anyways?” I said.

He said, “Oh, Miranda, I am just joking. Honestly, that is very weird. Put it in a baggy too and show the doctors when you see them.”

So I did; I was getting quite a collection on myself.

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I finally got a call on Monday from the dermatologist. I could not wait to see her.

That morning, when I got out of bed, the biting had settled down a lot, as had the spheres running all over my body—whatever the hell they were. When I went to get a shower, I glanced in the mirror and noticed these two V-like lines that almost looked like a zipper going from one shoulder blade to the other. I had never seen any kind of weird trail-like lines on my body before. If I see one more bizarre thing on my body in the next 24 hours, I am going to lose it! So, of course, I called to Philipe, Mr. Supportive, who looked at me with a “What now, Miranda?” look.

I said, “Look at my chest.”So Philipe, being a pervert, commented on my wonderful droopy

boobs and said, “Hey, they look the same to me.”I said with frustration, “Not my breasts, my chest, you dumbbell!

Look at these weird lines like a V going almost to my navel.”Philipe said, “I don’t know, Miranda. It just looks like an imprint

to me, maybe from your clothes.”I said, “I wasn’t wearing anything with a zipper on it.”“Well, I would not worry about it, dear. Are you feeling any better?”I said, “Yes, I am actually. The biting has subsided, and so did those

sphere-shaped things.”“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s good. Well, I have to go to work now.

Okay, bye then.”I decided to take a picture of my chest, without exposing my droopy

boobs. Boy do I need a boob job, I thought to myself. That is next on the list! Later on in the morning, I went to the washroom and passed some stool. When I was doing this, I heard this very large splash. The water actually splashed my bottom. I thought to myself, That was weird. When I looked into the toilet, there was a hug saclike thing in the toilet! I did a double take and said out loud, “What the hell is that?”

I decided that I was going to be the nurse and inspect this stool specimen a little bit more closely. So I went to the kitchen and got a huge ladle and a bowl and scooped this blob out of the toilet. The whole time, I was thinking, I cannot believe that I am doing this; this is really gross! I thought I should not be too disgusted, as this was my own stool and I used to have to do rectal touches on people in medicine and have my arm right up to my elbow in someone’s rectum. It was so bizarre looking. Again, I grabbed my camera and took a picture. I then started