Doctor Finds Living Worm in Woman's Brain

Once Rosemary Alvarez started experiencing arm numbness and having blurred vision, she went to the emergency room twice. Despite testing which came back as normal, doctors were puzzled by her symptoms until they saw something deep in her brain.

Phoenix, AZ - While taking a second look at Rosemary Alvarez's MRIs, doctors found something troubling. The shadowed area was something they became very concerned about. Neurosurgeon, Dr. Peter Nakaji said, “It's something down in her brain stem which is as deep in the brain as you can be.” Alvarez was prepared for surgery, and Dr. Nakaji and his colleagues went into the operating room, expecting to remove a tumor. What they found, however, was a worm (click "next" on the photo above to see the worm being extracted from Alvarez's brain). The doctors removed the worm and do not believe that Alvarez will have any lasting health problems. The real shocker is that these worms are becoming frequent occurrences. The worm is picked up by people who eat "undercooked pork, or spread by people who don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom," according to Fox. “It only takes one person who is spreading it constantly to get a lot of people exposed and some of those people are going to go on to develop this problem,” Nakaji told the network. A now-healthy Alvarez has returned to doing normal activities, including playing with her children in the yard. She hopes that by telling this story, others will learn an important lesson: “Wash your hands, wash your hands,” she said.