tysontrips

From his underground laboratories in Sao Paulo, Brazil it's tysontrips travelblog:

18 July, 2005

The Bacteria Monologues
Sometimes traveling is not all glory. Sometimes it's just guts, or the contents of one's guts, that make the story. This two-part series recollects past experiences of traumatic but humorous nature. It recalls the time in Tyson's life when food first met poisoning:

Part II

World Cup O' Noodles
How could I top the intense food poisoing in the nether regions of the Himalayan disputed territory? I couldn't. Not in southern Asia at least. That, my friend, is what we call forshadowing. Over the next weeks I slowly regained my strength while trekking through the Annapurna Range in the Himalayas. On the trail I was living off of rice, boiled vegetables, some sort doughy substance made from millet, and iodine-treated water. By the time I arrived in Kathmandu I felt full force and I had about five days to relax before my flight to Bangkok. Soccer's World Cup 2002 was just beginning, so I found the local eatery and claimed a chair in which I intended to sit and watch three matches a day for the next five days straight. Absolute paradise in my book. Until I ordered that grilled cheese sandwich. You know what; there is really no saying during all these illnesses which food item was making me sick. Maybe the quest for the source of all these infections is what made me decide to pursue a degree in Epidemiology and International Health when I returned to the US. Epidemiology investigates the causes and sourcess of human disease. But to an individual it really doesn't matter what made one sick. What matters is how sick one becomes. After the first game of the cup I remember wondering to myself why watching Uruguay beat defending champion France didn't put a smile on my face. I just felt drowsy and a little naseous. I headed back to my three dollar a night hotel room and found out the truth. This bout of illness wasn't the most painful; just the longest, most debilitating, and most annoying. I couldn't leave my room for the next three days (I think that's how long it was) because every few minutes I had a new attack. Thinking back right now, I know what the culprit was. It was Giardia lamblia. I may have picked it up in the Himalayas drinking unfiltered tap water. Who knows? But it makes one's stomach feel (and smell) like you just ate a dozen hardboiled Easter eggs that had been sitting outside rotting for six months. Pleasant for all. Some days later I had to find the strength to get my sorry ass up off the sweat-stained matress, empty out the trash can (which had also become my toilet because I was too weak to make it down the stairs to the bathroom) next to my bed, and go to the airport to catch my flight to Thailand. From this point on and for the next few days the only solid ‘food' I would put into my body was Ammodium AD. I was deriving 100% of my energy off ‘vitamin AD'. No joke. Diarrhea medicine: Because 8 hour busrides from Bangkok to Chiang Mai are not the time to be crapping your pants. Hey, that kinda sounds like a commercial, doesn't it?

Nepal-1 Tyson-0

Come On In, The Chowder's Fine
Let's see, I was now at a loss as to why I kept getting sick. The only thing I did know was that if I didn't eat anything I wouldn't get sick at all. I would just die a less painful and less messy, if slower, death. Unfortunately, I was now in Thailand, home to my all-time, undisputed favorite cuisine in the world, hands down. Ever. To the extreme. Got it? My evolution of ideas about safe eating had come full circle, from try everything to try nothing to now: confusion. Just when I thought I had figured out what was making me sick some other monster would grab me when I wasn't looking and take me down. So I decided to eat kamikazee style in southeast Asia. I would fear nothing. I would eat everything. I would challenge the bacteria and my body to a test of wills. I might even (gasp) not wash my hands after peeing. Because, you see, I had gone mad. And it showed. I slopped down Pad Thai in the streets of Bangkok made by vendors with SARS who cooked on the filthiest of carts. I didn't care. I washed down roasted maggots, scorpions, beetles and roaches with local moonshine whiskey at two in the morning on Ko Sahn Road. I didn't give a fuck. I ate noodles topped with undercooked oysters, mussels and clams and raw, blindingly spicy Thai peppers. And I wept. I chowed on mystery meat in Cambodia. I munched duck surprise in Laos. I went to outdoor local Thai markets all over the country and pointed at anything I didn't recognize and told them to put it in my belly. I slurped cold soup containing raw fish including eyes and eggs and unrecognizable slimy stuff. I couldn't be stopped. And I never again became ill....

Thailand-0 Thaison-1

thai
Above: Cream of Sum Yung Gai, Please! Thai markets have an absolutely unbeatable selection.

thai
Above: Scorpions and roaches and maggots, oh my!

Pacific Rim Job
....That was, until a long, overnight bus ride in Malaysia. Traveling south along the edges of the Pacific Rim in estern Malaysia toward an island known for its beauty, I suddenly felt the familiar grip of the shivers, fevers, shakes, and goosebumps. I pleaded with the bacteria not to strike again but I knew it was all in vain. By the time I arrived on the island after a morning boat ride, I had only enough energy to find a thatched hut to pass out in. I was ill. But this time it seemed to be different. Instead of lying awake I was passing out for periods of 4 hours and then stumbling outside to relieve myself. My body ached and the sun hurt my eyes. For the first time I didn't even care that I was missing out on the fantastic beach and sunny weather outside or that I was being eaten alive by ants and mosquitos. The next morning I woke up and realized that, for my safety, I better head back to somehwere that had doctors and hospitals, like the mainland. But because of the mostly similar symptoms to my previous four biological attacks I decided that I would try to continue to be a tourist and I spent a day exploring a prehistoric jungle in the middle of the country. By ‘exploring' I mean that I layed on my back all day on a picnic table and dodged fruit that was falling from the trees. It should have been paradise, but I hardly had the energy to crawl back to my hotel after my abandoned quarter-mile hike. During some parts of the day I would feel great, and during others, terrible. I had a fever that would come and go in waves. So I would think I was capable of doing something, like walking up a hill. But the next thing I knew I had been laying in the dirt drooling for two hours like the Mr. Burns I had become. I was really starting to think something was really wrong so I convinced the Canadian guy I was travelling with (or was I just seeing things) to come with me to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. We found a hotel. For the next couple days he was in and out of the dark room probably doing touristy things, while I lay in bed. But I had no concept of time. It seemed like he would leave in the morning and come in at night. And I wouldn't have even gotten up once. One day he brought me a tiny package of crackers which I tried to force down. A day or two later they were still lying there beside me. After some amount of time he informed me he was moving on. Okay, bye. I was starting to get scared but I was too weak to do anything about it. The final straw came one night at about 2am when I went to use the bathroom. I climbed off the bunkbed I had been sleeping on and stumbled towards the door. I remember looking at the carpet as I walked down the hall in order to maintain my balance. The next thing I saw was just like a snowy television screen. And then the carpet, up close. I had fainted and hit my head on the floor pretty hard. It was so unbelievable that I had just fainted that I think I started laughing at my patheticness. But now I could barely see. I needed to make it to the bathroom so I started slowly crawling down the hall. It must have looked pretty silly. I finally found the bathroom and climbed up the toilet to have a seat and rest. I put my head in my hands. Then my eyes went snowy again. Then black. Then I was face down, lying on the floor again. This time I had hit my head even harder on something and my head was throbbing. At that point I decided it was time for some medical attention. Whatever I had attacking my body had won and I was going to die if I didn't get help. Oh, medical science, please find me a cure. Game Over.

Final Score: Asia-5 Tyson-1

Typhus Volkmann
I crawled back to my bed and slept a few more hours. The next morning I used what little life energy I had left to pack my bags and hail a cab. All I said was "Hospital" to the cab driver and he figured the rest out. When I arrived I blindly navigated the hospital until I was ushered into the foreigners' area. One blood sample later my fortune read "Typhus." I had no idea what that was at the time but I just wanted it cured. I found out later that it is a rickettsial bacterial infection spread by fleas or body lice or putrid conditions (all of which I probably suffered from at this point in my travels (learn more about typhus at http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/typhus.jsp). So I pretty much had the friggin' plague. What that meant was that all I needed was a little wussy antibiotic and I would be saved. Fifty cents later I was back out on the street with my cure, although not feeling any better. I had been hoping to make the hospital my home for a few nights. I realized nine days had slipped by since I first felt this illness setting in. So I decided to move on. Should I have gone for a cure earlier? Maybe, but you have to remember that I am an idiot. At this point, all my ambitions to travel had evaporated. I was burnt out. I spent the next month or so in Indonesia lying on beaches, scuba diving, and attempting to paddle out to surf with my weak, puny, bony, girl arms. This time of rest fully restored my travel spirit, but continued the progression of my bodily atrophy. The only food I could stomach was rice and steamed vegetables. When I arrived home – as anyone who saw me will attest – I was a mess. I felt great but I looked like hell. My feet had swollen up to look like clubs and my body was covered in infected mosquito bites and wounds. I had a good tan though. So I was a tan Mr. Burns. I paid a visit to the local tropical disease specialist. I had lost 25 pounds, down from 187 to 162. I didn't know I had that much extra weight to lose!? Hmm. The doctor wanted to get a full diagnosis on me. The nurses took my blood. Apperently, I didn't even have a vial of blood to spare, because as I was waving goodbye to the nurses and walking out of the clinic into the waiting room, the lights went dim. Next thing I know I was on my back with nurses huddling around me. I had fainted and smashed my head AGAIN. This time in front of a whole crowd of people in the waiting room who all had petrified looks on their faces. I laughed it off because this was nothing compared to last time. The blood work came back. I had told the doctor about my typhus. Judging by the infected sores all over my body he had also preliminarily diagnosed me with secondary syphilis. That was a scary one. I told him that I had steered clear of the cheap Asian sex market. Now he added to my diagnosis camphylobacter (a common foodborne bacteria—not surprising), mild anemia, and substituted staph for syphilis. Not bad for a few months work.

Above: Rat flea filled with a full stomach of (my) blood.