Nerd Alert!

My friend and I have been comiserating because each of us has a pet with a current tapeworm infection. However, being med students, we can't just feel like bad pet owners and go about our business like normal people. We have to look up the offending parasite in our OLD NOTES from Infectious Disease, then proceed to freak out about the potention for zoonotic (animal to human) transmission.

A text message from my friend yesterday:

Diego has toxocara cati! Can I get visceral larva migrans?

Hilarious.

Note: According to the vet, humans can only get a tapeworm infection from their pet if they eat an infected flea, louse, or small rodent. According to Wiki (aka The Source of All Knowledge), humans can be infected and, since humans are not the natural host, can get stuck and lead to visceral larva migrans as well as enter the eye and lead to a false diagnosis of retinoblastoma (for which they enucleate the eye - so my friend and I could be infected, the worms could go into our eye, we could be misdiagnosed, then they will TAKE OUT OUR EYES.)