Mid December 2013, the girlfriend had a relaxing Saturday. Started relatively early with spa treatments and lunch (which was actually her Christmas present from the previous year - just never found the time to go), followed by some Christmas shopping on Queen west in Toronto. This included stopping at a French bakery where we picked up a bunch of macaroons. Around this time the weather began to change and we received the first major snow dump of the season.
Originally we were supposed to go out for dinner with friends that evening but with the detoriating weather it was decided to postpone. Once at home we began rummaging for food in the freezer and found some chicken, crushed tomatoes and mozzarella. I quickly thawed the chicken and was able to whip together a pretty decent chicken parmigiana followed by macaroons for dessert.
Several hours later as we were finishing a movie on Netflix I started feeling a little unwell. Just a little nausea, nothing signifcant, but enough to make me feel a little uncomfortable. I of course tried my best to ignore it. It was about an hour later when the vomiting began. For the next 6 hours or so I was vomiting/retching every thirty minutes. It was like clockwork, I'd vomit, feel slightly better crawl back into bed only to be woken up 20 minutes later with the need to vomit up the small amount of bile that had accumulated in my stomach. The diarrhea also began at around midnight and like the vomiting was happening every 30 minutes or so.
I remained in bed till noon when I forced myself to take up residence in the couch where I sipped only small amounts of Gatorade and continued to insist that I was fine. The girlfriend was understandably concerned and wasn't convinced by my meek arguments. But I insisted and remained supine on the couch for several more hours. Because really, I'm a medical professional, I know my body and I can tell you I'm not dying. I even dismissed her observation that I hadn't been to the bathroom since 6 in the morning (it was now close to 6pm). I finally relented, but only after I tried to prove all was well by standing which resulted in a very near syncope.
When I was triaged at the local emerg I was still insistent that I was fine, at least till the triage nurse showed me my vitals. I was tachycardic at 136, and hypotensive at 86/50. Several hours and 4 litres of ringers lactate later I was dc'ed home.
To this day I still can't look at macaroons even though I know they were not the culprit. I presume the culprit was the chicken, but I'll never know for certain. I could have easily picked something up at the spa, or it could have been the spa lunch. Either way, it was an ordeal I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemies.