Splashing Into Danger: Childhood Summers and the Hidden Threat of “Brain-Eating” Amoebae
It’s rare, but it’s almost always deadly. And its range is growing.
Growing up in northern Mexico and then in Texas, I remember going to irrigation ditches to take a dip on hot summer days. Sure, there were swimming pools. But it cost money to go to those, and our parents didn’t see any value in taking us there. So we would get on our bicycles and ride to an irrigation ditch by a farm, one made of concrete, and spend hours playing in the water.
One day, after getting back home from such an outing, my grandmother sat me down and put cotton up my nose. She said it was to draw out the water from my nose. “I don’t want your brain to be eaten by that bacteria,” she said. I had no clue what she was talking about. Still, I sat there and had cotton up my nose until she was convinced all the “dirty water” was drawn out.
It wouldn’t be until college that I found out what she was talking about. She was worried about Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba (not bacteria) known to kill children once in a while. She had heard from the health department that the amoeba was found in water, and that cases peaked in the summer.
