Exotic: Go surf Hawaii and catch the most horrifically named disease since “brain eating amoeba!”

I triple-dog dare you.

Brain eating amoeba, once allegedly featured in the Waco, Texas BSR wave pool, is a very scary name. Amoeba is bad enough. Once, I contracted amoebic dysentery in either Egypt or Jordan, likely from trying to develop a cast iron stomach by drinking tap water. Anyhow, there I was in Aqaba on the Red Sea feeling fabulous, going to sleep then waking up a few hours later with diarrhea.

“Classic.” I thought, went to the bathroom then went back to bed. An hour later I was back. Then 30 minutes. 15 minutes after that I was both diarrhea-ing and puking and that continued until my two great friends rolled me into a hospital. I was so delirious that I don’t remember much. The doctor told me that the amoebas has started eating through my intestinal walls and I stayed in that hospital, hooked to an IV, for seven days.

Maybe they got to my brain too. We’ll never know but I digress. Guess what just popped up on the Big Island?

Rat Lungworm disease.

Have you ever read anything so terrifyingly disgusting? And let’s learn all about it. Let’s head straight to the respected medical journal The New York Post for the most up to date information.

Health officials have now confirmed a total of three cases of rat lungworm disease in travelers who spent time in Hawaii. A report from the Hawaii Department of Health confirms the cases, which are believed to be unrelated to one another.

The disease, which is officially known as angiostrongyliasis but is also called “rat lungworm disease,” is caused by a parasitic infection. The parasite is known to target rats, hence the name, but its life cycle can bring it into contact with humans as well. The severity of the infection can vary from person to person, but the disease can be deadly in some cases.

The parasite in question, a rat lungworm, has a habit of infecting rodents which can spread the parasite through feces. The parasite is known for hitching a ride on slugs and, when a rat finds one of the slimy critters to feast on, the rodent becomes infected and the life cycle begins anew.

In humans, the parasite can wreak havoc on the nervous system. Late last year a man died after eating a slug on a dare resulted in a rat lungworm infection that left him paralyzed. He remained in a compromised state for eight full years before he died. One of the three infections confirmed by Hawaii health officials appears to have happened in a similar way.

“One of the individuals visited East Hawai‘i in December 2018 and became infected by purposely eating a slug on a dare,” the state Department of Health explains in a statement. “The individual became ill in late December and was not hospitalized for their symptoms.”

Would you eat a slug on a dare?

I don’t think I would.