"Where's The Beef?"

2008-06-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well.....it's not in my freezer anymore.

You see, a bacon/cheddar hamburger patty from my freezer was picked up last Thursday by the Franklin County Board of Health and sent to their testing lab.

Can you say......."E. coli 0157:H7 "?

Can you say......"positive"?

Yep, I've gotten very friendly with an epidemiologist with the Franklin County Board of Health.

We're on a first-name basis.....been chatting with her almost every day.

In fact, I just got off the phone with her this morning.

Uh-huh --

E. Coli......in my kitchen.

Actually, to be more precise.......in my Kate.

My 14-year-old daughter Kate.

(Who we are now affectionately calling:

"Katie-Coli")

Luckily, Kate is feeling fine and healthy.....finally.

But it's been a very interesting 3 weeks.

Hmmm.....maybe I better start from the beginning --

********************************************

Kate started to feel sick exactly 3 weeks ago today.....Thursday night, June 5th. A bad headache that night. The next day the diarrhea started (sorry to be so graphic....) and the very intense stomach cramps.

Then nausea, headache, fever and more of the yucky bathroom stuff. A lot more. Pretty constant. We were thinking she had the stomach flu. Then over the weekend, the constant trips to the bathroom and more abdominal cramps. She didn't (couldn't) eat anything, but was very, very thirsty.

She was so bad, she barely moved from her bed -- never even left her room. She didn't even want to watch TV (now we knew it was bad).

She still had abdominal cramps but never vomited, ever. By Monday evening we were still thinking it was some kind of crazy stomach flu, when she said that she thought she had blood in her stool.

Uh-oh.

Not wanting to panic, we waited until Tuesday morning to call her Dr. to get her in. Thinking back on it now (hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?) she should have been seen much earlier.

The Dr. examined her and took a stool sample. She sent us to a lab with that sample and to get her blood tested. As we waited the next few days for the results, Kate slowly started to feel better. By Thursday night, she actually emerged from her room for about half an hour. I even think I saw her smile.

On Friday morning she felt worlds better. Not completely over it, but better. She even ate something.....and smiled. It had been 1 week.

We still hadn't heard anything from the Dr.....until the phone rang around 2 pm Friday --

"Mrs. Gingery, This is Dr. Francis. I think you need to sit down."

No lie.

Those were her exact words.

Not exactly what you want to hear from your childs' doctor.

"Kate has E. coli."

Nope.....I didn't really want to hear that either.

(Stay tuned for Part Two of: "CSI: Hamburger Patty Patrol" starring Katie-Coli-- coming soon)

Kelly's Island

"Where's The Beef?"