pizowell: Portrait of a Food Poisoning Victim

As human beings I feel that it's important that we cherish new experiences.  The daily doldrums of life can become somewhat overbearing in a very passive aggressive kind of way, weighing you down, and time, already fleeting as it is, seems only to pass exponentially quicker.  It's in our nature to covet the status quo and sneer at change.  It's why billions are served at McDonald's daily.  One Big Mac is chemically engineered to taste just like every other Big Mac you've ever eaten.  There's a bland sort of comfort in that.  But I've grown to love new experiences.  I enjoy trying new things.  It's exciting!  For instance, not long ago I tried calamari for the first time.  That's squid.  And I loved it!  I will always cherish that experience, not only because I tried something new, but because I was with friends, in a town that I'd never visited before, in a state I'd only visited a few times in the past, and we were all having a good time, and I'd eaten something as seemingly disgusting as squid...and I liked it!  I felt so enlightened, so world-weary.

But only a few months after this great new experience, I had the misfortune of running afoul of another that, until then, I'd only heard spoken of with dreadful recall by prior victims.  I'm talking about food poisoning!  I had had a brush with a minor case of food poisoning some years back.  The culprit was Taco Bell in this instance.  The experience resulted in a sleepless night and my only experiences to date with losing consciousness, both instance of which occurred on a trek from my bathroom to my bedroom, probably a twenty foot distance at the most.  I remember coming to and feeling something rubbing on my forehead.  I then realized that it was the carpet in the my bedroom.  I had collapsed onto all fours and was rubbing my heavy head on the carpet, from side to side, like restless windshield wipers.  I managed to get myself up onto one knee, then came the darkness.  I came to a second time beside my bed, lying atop my computer which I had dragged off my computer desk.  This was a brand new computer, I might add, a very expensive brand new computer.  I finally managed to pull myself into bed.  I could feel the carpet burn on my knees and elbows.  I was exhausted, pouring sweat.  My heart raced.  I was in bad shape.  But I remember feeling so relieved to finally be in bed.  So comforted by the feeling of the cool sheets on my cold, clammy skin.  The relief was overwhelming.  I fell asleep and in the morning I had miraculously recovered, with only some minor carpet burn on my knees.  As bad as the experience was, I felt relieved that it wasn't a full-blown case of food poisoning, including terrible nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping, pain, etc.  

Then came a seemingly ordinary Saturday afternoon a couple weeks ago.  My girlfriend and I decided to stop at one of our new favorite restaurants in the area for lunch.  It was actually my idea to dine there.  I recall now being almost giddy about it as a matter of fact.  The restaurant had been another recently enjoyed new experience and we'd eaten there several times since.  Up to this point, the food there had been exceptional: great appetizers, great steak, great bread, a nice atmosphere, etc.  The restaurant had quickly become my favorite place to dine out in the area.  It being lunch time, I ordered a simple sandwich, a chicken club, another first.  I enjoyed my lunch and the time I spent with my girlfriend, discussing upcoming vacation plans, fun trips, holidays, etc.  A swell time.  It wasn't until later that evening that I first began to feel...off.  I still had my appetite and enjoyed a nice dinner, but something just wasn't right.  I felt tired.  I just wanted to lay down and so I did.  Over the course of the next hour or so I began to feel worse and worse.  Soon there was a distinct discomfort in my stomach that grew to a rumbling pain, then came diarrhea, and, finally, intense nausea.  For the remainder of that night I was as sick as I'd ever been in my life.  No sleep was had, for just as I felt the sandman sprinkling his magic sleep dust into my eyes, the trolls in my stomach would begin again their vicious battle dance, poking their jagged spears into my stomach and intestines, radiating pain throughout.  I would rush to the bathroom as quickly as possible.  I would then spend the next several minutes violently throwing up and having explosive diarrhea.  But it wasn't just the nausea, the vomiting and the diarrhea that took its awful toll.  It was the extreme exhaustion, the dehydration, the pain and hounding, merciless torment of uncontrollable sickness.  It really sucked.

At last, I slept.  When morning came, I felt a little better.  The nausea and stomach pain had ceased.  But exhausted I was.  More exhausted than I think I'd ever been.  Most of that Sunday I don't recall, as I slept it away. Monday morning I felt my appetite return.  I ate a little.  I drank enough water to fill an Olympic size pool.  And yet, I was still not quite right. The toll the event had taken on me continued to linger.  I was light-headed, dizzy.  I would stand and feel the earth shift beneath my feet.  I felt woozy and adrift.  First my stomach, now my head.  The dehydration had done a number on me.  My girlfriend brought me bottles of sports drinks and I drank them in rapid succession.  The next day I drank half a dozen or more bottles in a rainbow of fruit flavors.  Slowly, I began to feel like myself again.

I had survived 32 years on this planet without experiencing food poisoning and I certainly hope to never experience it again.  If anything the experience has made me wiser, but unfortunately it has also made me wary of ever ordering chicken at restaurants again.  And I love chicken!  If you've had an experience with food poisoning, please feel free to share it. But if you, dear reader and friend, have an encounter of your own with food poisoning in the future, I'd recommend remaining near a bathroom, having a puke bucket never more than an arm's length away and keep plenty of sports drinks handy.