When Mark Ward was on vacation with his wife in Belize, he noticed "small pin-sized spots all over his body." Given where he was traveling at the time, Ward chose to ignore them, thinking they were just bug bites that would disappear on their own.
A few days later, Mark found that he was also losing weight, feeling exhausted, and experiencing pain each time he reached for things. The spots had also started growing into "huge lesions" that had begun to burst open across his skin.
His wife, Janina, a holistic medical student, had never seen such a thing before and pressed her husband to see a doctor. Ward resisted; he didn't like going to the doctor.
One day, as Ward was attempting to fix a car, he realized just how lethargic he felt and how much pain his lesions were causing him. It was only then that he finally relented and went to see a medical professional.
"I couldn't close my hand and when I went to grab something it was just painful," he recalled. "It felt like something was just...gnawing at [my skin]."
For Janina, she'd had a sinking feeling that her husband's condition was serious by the time the lesions had grown to the size of dollar coins. But it was ultimately his concession to see a doctor that made her worry most. "For Mark to concede that he needs to go and get help from somebody is really big," she said.
The doctors in Belize were unable to diagnose what was affecting Mark, so when the couple returned to America, they sought out further medical help at home in Arizona.
Dr. Sean Reader was finally able to tell Mark and Janina that Mark was suffering from cutaneous leishmaniasis, a serious skin infection caused by bacteria. "Mark had large centrally ulcerating crusted lesions, showing he had an infection which was likely parasitic," Dr. Reader explained.
There's no other word on Mark's current condition, but we hope that he's receiving the medical attention he needs.
You can watch a clip of him talking about his condition here:
