Last night was not a fun night at our house.
The evening started off nice enough. After the baby went to bed, my husband and 3 year old son and I had a nice dinner on our porch. Grilled shrimp, corn on the cob, a spinach tomato salad, and whole wheat bread. My husband had a beer, I drank water. Dessert was watermelon and cherries. We all had the same amount of shrimp–this we know because my husband commented on how we each had 8-9, while our 3 year old had 10.
An hour after my 3 year old went to bed, he woke up crying. Then again. And again. “My tummy hurts.” At 10:30 pm, he threw up all over his bed. Think cherries. We cleaned it up and put him back down. He threw up three more times after that. Fortunately, he made it to the bathroom every time.
At 4:30am, my husband starts getting up with the urge to throw up or use the bathroom or both. Oddly enough, other than being completely exhausted, I feel fine. Completely fine. I have a very sensitive stomach and get motion sick easily, but suddenly I have the stomach of steel in my family? Something’s not adding up. My husband even had alcohol with dinner, which is supposed to help kill off any bugs that could lead to food poisoning, right? Why didn’t I get sick?
Finally I can think of one thing. Every night before bed, I take a probiotic pill. I open the capsule, pour the good bacteria on my tongue, then wash them down with a glass of water. Could it be that those healthy bacteria did something to prevent me getting any symptoms of food poisoning? Who knows. But it’s the only logical explanation I can come up with.
