Intoxicacion por Alimentos

I abruptly awoke at 3 AM this morning with painful cramps in the tummy and a powerful urge to go to the bathroom. As well as farts. I got out of bed, put my sandals on quickly, and rushed across the patio into the kitchen and reached the bathroom. Upon making it to the toilet, I had diarrhea. The same story repeated 2 hours later. And then 2 hours later, when my alarm went off. I texted one of the residents to tell him I would be late to work. He responded with the following text, "Estamos igual. Todos con el mismo problema. Fue el pollo seguro." In other words, the lunch we ate yesterday was the source of our food poisoning.

Upon arriving to work, after the runs had settled down enough for me to be sure I wouldn't crap my pants on the bus ride to the hospital, I learned that the staff of the entire hospital had suffered from this same diarrhea. Secretaries, nurses, doctors. There was a debate about whether it was the rice or the chicken in the lunch. There was another debate (of course, we're in a hospital) about the identity of the causal organism. Top candidates were S. Aureus, B. Cereus, and E. Coli. Anyway, it was probably an toxin-producing bacteria since everyone improved after 10-12 hours. And btw, everyone ate the lunch today. Ravioli, salad with carne (yikes!) and fruit salad. Probably the unluckiest person was my friend who was on call. Upon just falling asleep at 4AM, he was awoken by a torrent of diarrhea. Pobre.