Once upon a time last week, I went out to dinner to celebrate my friend’s 1-week return. We had sushi and it was awesome, and I caught up with a bunch of people that I hadn’t seen in a year or so.
Half of us also got struck down by pretty effing severe food poisoning.
Hooray for Shigella. (Thanks a lot, shigellosis!)
(I mean this with all the sarcasm I can muster.)
On Monday night, I started getting a severe, stabbing headache, but thought perhaps that I was just dehydrated. I was also hit by a sense of overwhelming fatigue and full-body aches, but I mistakenly thought that was because I’d done a double workout that day. That night, however, I was so tired, I couldn’t even convince myself to walk up the stairs to sleep in my own bed, so I instead passed out on the couch downstairs, where I remained for 11 hours.
I woke up in the morning to drink a bunch of coconut water/water in an attempt to combat the dehydration I thought I had, then went to take a shower and started feeling slightly better, except that no matter what I did, I just felt cold. My cat sensed that all was not well and climbed on top of me to lay on me, so I decided to try to go back to sleep. Despite my 14-pound cat (yes, she’s tubby. no, I can’t get my mom to stop feeding her treats), 2 blankets, and a bunch of clothes, I couldn’t stop shivering.
I’ll spare you the more sordid details, but I basically spent the day lying in bed with a 103.3 degree fever with the worst recurring headache of my life. It was horrible, but while we’re at it, here’s a lesson on Shigella!
- Spread = fecal-oral – can be from infected food handlers, contaminated vegetables harvested from a field with sewage in it, contaminated water…(it makes me sick to think about this ._.)
- More common in the summer than the winter
- Symptoms include fever, stomach cramps, often bloody diarrhea
- Usually treated with antibiotics, but they may be resistant
- Try your best to prevent dehydration (most common complication)
