Summary

This essay is about Morgellons disease, a condition in which people find strange fibers emerging from underneath the skin. The medical community does not believe this is a real condition and considers those who claim to suffer from it as delusional. Self-identified patients gather at an annual conference in Austin that Leslie attends. There she meets various people suffering from Morgellons. These people are in both physical and psychological pain as their condition remains discredited and untreated.

Leslie once had the experience of something emerging from her skin when a botfly larva embedded itself in her ankle on a trip to Bolivia. She went to the doctor and had it removed but then became paranoid that there was a second egg or worm still under her skin. This helps her to understand the Morgellons patients who are obsessively inspecting their skin and...