EColi: A Love Story

This is a true story that I wrote for a class project.

Enjoy and Laugh.

For Chef Pattie

E.Coli: A Love Story.

Most people would agree that few things in life are as sweet as a long weekend. The much anticipated, waited for and dreamed about days off when plans for just about any activity can become a reality. This long weekend that just passed was to be my very first American thanksgiving. Bring on the red white and blue, I had been baking pies for days before hand to dish out to friends and family to show my support of a crazy thanksgiving that was (In my Canadian opinion) one month late. The morning of turkey day, the boyfriend and I woke up and decided that today was a day to not break our fast but to wait in anticipation for the turkey awaiting us later. We helped around one household, fixing things and what not. Said our goodbyes and headed over to a friends house, from there we were on to the main event. I was so hungry at this point in time that I literally feared for the life of anyone who was brave or stupid enough to come between me and that plate of mashed potatoes. Diner was a success, both my pies were inhaled and we left for the comforts of our beds pumped full of tryptophan and gravy thinking that this was the American dream. Little did we know what was waiting for us around the corner . .

The next day was beautiful. The weather was perfect and I was beyond pleased to find myself at the end of November and still in shorts. I re-potted some plants as boyfriend replaced the breaks on my car. I hopped on my strand cruiser and peddled down to the old Taco shop “Poncho’s Taco’s” just around the corner. Knowing what my honey likes, I ordered one carne asada burrito with everything on it for him and one carne asada taco for little old me to go. I peddled back on home and surprised boyfriend with a Mexican lunch to compliment our-oh so American dinner. We sat together and ate and lounged in the warm sun and relished the thoughts that we still had a whole two and a half days off.

Saturday night we decided to have a BBQ. We invited three other couples over and I spent much of the night playing with our friend’s three-year-old daughter. After we ate and watched a little football, it was decided that we would go over to one of the couples houses to play a few drinking games. Having just started feeling the glorious pains that come every month with being a woman, I decided to be the designated driver and not drink. I sat on the couch reading a magazine, writhing in pain when one of our friends came into the room “Hey – Johnny just threw up!” I sprung to my feet and met him in the kitchen. He looked fine and said, “Yeah dude. That was so weird but I feel fine now.” We decided that he would play one more round of beer pong and then we would call it a night. I had just sat down on the couch and resumed my magazine – cramps combo when he came back into the room. His face was pale as he looked at me, “Can we leave soon? Please? Like . . . now?” Not feeling so hot myself, I was more than happy to go. I made a quick round to say goodbye and we got into the car. On the way home we discussed why John could be feeling so sick. “I really don’t think it was the beer.” He said, he had only had maybe four beers since the beginning of the BBQ and for a man of his size (6’2, 190lbs) that was nothing. We got back to the house and retreated to our backyard bachelor room and lay down. Me on the bed, him on the couch. I began to feel nauseous. Trying to focus my attention on anything that wouldn’t make me vomit, I began to have those all too familiar telltale signs that I might at any given time, spew my cookies. Every texture around me made me queasy. The paint on the wall looked too much like cottage cheese (Which makes me uncomfortable on a good day), the duvet was too soft and wavy. Finally I focused on a photograph with a dock sitting in the water. “Babe? I think… I think…I’m gonna-…” and with that my boyfriend dashed across the room, nearly ripped the doors off the hinges and vaulted into the backyard to unleash a stream of projectile vomit into the garden. Snapping out of my ill daze for a moment, I ran to him with water and tissue and coo-ed softly hoping to make him feel better. Back and forth and back and forth he went, couch to garden, couch to garden.

My mind was a mess trying to source out what could possibly be making my poor boy sick. I slipped on my detective’s hat and began to investigate and look at the facts. It couldn’t have been the beer. He and his friends had not been drinking a lot and I know that he can hold his alcohol. Even if it was the beer, there is no way that he would be THIS sick. Beer was out. Maybe it was from thanksgiving? Turkey? or perhaps the stuffing? No, I had spoken to his sister today and no mention of anyone else being sick. Turkey day was not the culprit. Horror filled my head at the thought that maybe WE had made people sick with the BBQ! My thoughts went right away to the three year old girl. If she ate beef that was undercooked and contaminated with E.Coli, she could be very VERY sick. Still, nobody else was sick but him. My nausea returned. My breathing was very heavy and my heart started beating out of my chest. I was salivating too. Very unlike normal menstrual cramps. Suddenly, a light bulb came on. “John . . . I’ll put 100 bucks on E. Coli… and I hate to tell you this baby but the worse is yet to come.”

He blinked at me a few seconds, confused about what I had just said and fighting the urge to purge. “What?” he said. I explained “ it all makes sense now. I’m not in pain from my cramps, I’m sick with it too. E. Coli can live in your body for a while before it produces toxins in your intestines! It was Poncho’s. Poncho’s stupid bloody tacos honey! It has to be! Poncho’s tacos, is the only food that you and I exclusively ate this weekend. With no one else getting sick, that’s got to be it! We both had the carne asada. You are throwing up and I’m pretty close – both symptoms of E.Coli! The only thing missing is- ” John bolted for the door. This time he ran inside the house, to the bathroom and slammed the door. “ – Diarrhea…”

E. Coli is found primarily in beef, whether it was time/temperature abused or cross contaminated is unclear but the facts were in and I was positive. E.coli. It made sense as to why he was so much sicker than me. While I ate a taco the size of my hand, he ate a burrito the size of a new born. My poor man crawled out of the bathroom long enough to say “Baby, I think I need to camp in here for the night. You should go back to bed.” And with that he quickly retreated to expel the demons within, though from which end I’m not entirely sure. I grabbed some blankets and made haste in making a sort of floor nest type thing. John crept to the floor nest and shivered with cold. Knowing that his body was fighting the sickness, I waited until I was in a happy place of cramping but not nauseous and I ran back to our room for supplies. I returned to my shivering sweetheart on the floor and covered him with more blankets. Not wanting to be touched of cuddled (Understandably) I lay down beside him and waited for the storm to pass. Trailing his favorite blanket like a cape, my 4-year-old boy in a 23 year olds body went back and forth to the bathroom all night. Once he got back he would huddle on the floor like a turtle or in the fetal position curled up with his head under the blankets. I stayed awake all night with him and near 4 o clock in the morning he seemed to catch a break. He could sit still for ten straight minutes without having to wretch from ether direction. I looked him over checking for his coloring; knowing that E. Coli can in severe cases, cause Kidney failure. I knew that jaundice wouldn’t set in that fast but I was taking no chances.

From under the blankets in the fetal position, a hand crept out from the dark.

“Thank you for staying with me all night babe. I love you so much” the whisper said. In the dark of the morning, with dawn still a dream away; my eyes watered a little as I clutched his hand. “Of course my darling, I would never leave. I love you and I think the worst is behind you now.” By six o’clock in the morning, my Johnny bug was able to move back to our bed. Thankfully I had nothing more than some warning signs on vomiting and some gnarly business from my behind so I remained vigilant as his nurse. We slept from six am until ten and I got up to begin the healing process. He told me how badly his body was hurting. I knew that he would need rest and that even if his stomach was sensitive and weak, it would need something to start to feel better. Hot chicken broth, water and a little ginger ale were slowly ingested and to my relief- kept down. The next few hours were a mix of my driving around looking for the staples – more soup and not the gross ones found in the cupboard that had been there since the birth of the time, Gatorade – specifically the lemon-lime, crackers, bingo and crossword scratchers etc. Once I got home and we were together again cuddled in bed with scratchers, Gatorade, soup and movies, I asked boyfriend a serious question. “How long since you pooped before getting sick? Maybe once right?” -Right he said. I wondered how easy it would be to take a stool sample and check if I was right.

Later on that day, while we were inside, we found out that another member of the family has slept a sleepless night on the bathroom floor with the exact same symptoms – after eating poncho’s tacos. What was so scary is that she has a two-year-old boy. I shudder to think what would have happened had he eaten the sickening meat. I wrote down the number to this taco place and looking forward to calling and ripping a new one into whoever it was who let this sickness ruin our long weekend. Even though it brought Johnny and I together to fight something gnarly this weekend was still pretty awesome. But I wont be telling them that.

“Babe I was Sh&%$ing and barfing everywhere. I can’t believe you love me this much” – Boyfriend