While we may not all fall victim to a maliciously poisoned cup (like the Queen in Hamlet), eating out has risks of its own. I’m talking about food poisoning, of course; I’ve just recovered from a bout of Salmonellosis and I’ve got to say, it was not pretty.

Last Saturday, my family and I were at Megamall and decided to have some hot chocolate at Cafe Xocolat for our afternoon snack. Since the taza de xocolat we had all ordered is an extremely rich and heavy drink, my mom asked my dad to purchase some salty food from a nearby Chicharon Espesyal stall. He bought a small paper bag of pork chicharon (rind crisps) and another bag of chicken skin crisps. While Mama and Marielle indulged in the chicken skin crisps, Papa and I ate the pork chicharon. I was able to snatch only three pieces from the bag before my dad finished the whole thing.

I started feeling weird around 9pm that night, while Marielle and I were at Sugarnot having a late dinner with friends. The nausea only worsened as the night progressed, and I begged to go home two hours later.

The next morning, I felt feverish and had no desire to eat. At breakfast, I found that my dad had spent the rest of the previous day in the bathroom. I didn’t feel much better than that, and after breakfast I had to go lie down and sleep, or else I felt I would start vomiting. I slept most of the day away, didn’t eat lunch, and had a piddling dinner before tottering off to bed at 8pm.

We figured it must have been the pork chicharon that did us in, because both my mom and Marielle had felt no ill effects — and they had the chicken crisps, not the chicharon. My dad and I were both knocked down by the food-borne illness, but our symptoms were different in intensity. While I only experienced nausea, fever, a bad headache, and loss of appetite, my dad ran almost the whole gamut of symptoms representative of salmonella poisoning: fever, abdominal pain, headache, nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

This morning, my dad still couldn’t get out of bed. I awoke feeling much better and raced off to hiphop class at the gym with my sister. My appetite still hasn’t returned to normal, but that’s to be expected for a few days more.

In any case, I lost two whole pounds, which makes me feel just a teensy bit better about the whole ordeal. Just a teensy bit.

Tags: Food Poisoning, Health, Weight Loss