Guardiasis in Paradise

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Water you drink in the pristine wilderness may not be as pure as you'd think, because there's ...

STAFF PHOTOS

I wandered up a rock canyon that veered off from a larger dry wash. The spot was so remote that I could find no trace of footprints on the soft, sandy bottom. The sides of the canyon grew steeper and narrower around each bend.

A spotted owl greeted me from his perch on a box elder tree. I thought he'd probably never seen anything like me so close, and I told him I felt the same about him. I watched the bird awhile, then went on my way. Before long, the canyon walls were only seven or eight feet apart and about 40 feet high, winding tight around corners.

Then I heard it: "gurgle, burble" . . . the sound any creature in the high desert would find heavenly. Abruptly the canyon ended in a tiny waterfall and a pool. I drank and drank. Ahhh . . .

During the six months that followed, I returned to this isolated canyon whenever I could. I discovered the origin of the spring, about 60 feet above the falls. The spot was my own paradise. I always drank my fill from the little waterfall. And I always left it feeling renewed and restored.

Then one day I took a friend into the canyon after the summer rains. He, too, was enchanted. But he wouldn't drink the water at the end. "No way," he said, wary of some parasite he'd heard was infecting our streams and rivers. I drank some water, though. After all, I knew the spring was safe.

About two weeks later, I began to experience intense abdominal pain. Then came weeks of constipation. After that I was hit with diarrhea and vomiting. Nothing—not even water—would stay in my gastrointestinal tract for more than 20 minutes.

I was starving, dehydrated, and weak by the time I finally consulted an internist. After a thorough examination, he made his diagnosis: giardiasis. I was given a drug, and within 24 hours the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea subsided. In two days I felt brought back to life. However, I was still skinny and tired from a month's infirmity . . . and I was finally wise to a sad fact: "Nor any drop to drink" holds true even in paradise.

BEAVER FEVER

What had made me so sick was an intestinal parasite called Giardia (je-ar'-de-a) lamblia. Giardiasis, the disease the little giardias cause, is sometimes called backpacker's fever (because backwoods hikers catch it from drinking untreated water) . . . or beaver fever (because these large rodents often carry and spread the disease as they travel between aquatic environments). But giardiasis is not limited to remote waters. It's now the most common parasitic disease of humans in the U.S., and it's fast becoming a national concern. It is, in fact, worldwide—present in all climates from the equator to the poles . . . and a major cause of traveler's diarrhea. (So many tourists have returned from the Soviet Union—to cite one example—with giardiasis that another name for the disease is the trotskys.)