Food Poisoning ruins Valentine's Day plans

Two words: Food Poisoning.

The Friday before Valentines Day, my boyfriend flew from his home in Phoenix, AZ, to my home in Portland, OR. I picked him up, and we began what was supposed to be a beautiful, romantic holiday weekend.

We drove East, following the Columbia River, enjoying the winter beauty together. As the evening drew near, we arrived in Hood River, OR. We found a cheap hotel room overlooking the Columbia, and decided on a place for dinner- a burger joint within walking distance of our room.

My boyfriend's not a fan of mayonnaise. I however, consider the condiment essential for any burger. Silly me, I believed that any restaurant that wanted to remain open, would adhere to basic food handling standards & safety. A word of advice on condiment bars: unless you can SEE that mayo is in a cooling bath, don't go near it.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed... but it's probably worse than what you're imagining! Within two hours I was feeling the rumble, and beginning those hurried darts to the toilet. By 10pm I was rarely leaving the coolness of the ceramic surroundings. Although gritty details can be entertaining, I'll spare you those contained in the several hours which followed. With the exception of these: the evacuation of my system was taking place from the rear; a painful, explosive, cramping, dehydrating sort of evacuation. By 3:30am, my system was empty, but the violent rejection continued. By 4:30 I was shitting blood, and nothing else.

When my boyfriend awoke and saw the state I was in, he insisted that we go to a hospital. Some of you may be wondering why this decision didn't take place sooner: because i didn't want to believe that this case of food poisoning was that bad. I've traveled to some pretty gnarly places, and have suffered the effect of foreign & unusual foods, and had only once sought medical attention in such a case, a nasty case of e-coli in Calcutta, India. My psychology boiled down to these two factors: 1) I was too proud to admit that I was too weak to handle what was going on inside of my gut. and 2) The majority of food poisonings are fairly benign; once your system has cleared the offending party, you tend to feel better and recover quickly. All night long, I kept telling myself that if I could just grit my teeth through the pain and discomfort, that it would all be over soon. I was wrong.

We arrived at the emergency room around 6am. After fluids and a heavy dose of antibiotics I was sent on my way with these words: "no solid foods" & "you should be feeling better in a few days".  A FEW DAYS!?!?!?!? I had worked hard to plan this particular Valentines Day weekend, and part of this plan included a night at the gorgeous upscale resort Skamania Lodge, complete with a room-with-a-view and a romantic dinner.

Check-in was at 3pm. We were greeted at the room by a lovely gift from my parents- a bottle of champagne and a bowl of chocolate covered strawberries. My boyfriend said that both were delicious, as was the dinner that he ate alone.

I spent the next 20 or so hours recovering, ingesting only water and broth, barely moving from the luxurious king sized bed. The next day I was feeling well enough to drive my boyfriend to his flight, and with that so ended the "perfect Valentine's Day weekend".