The Tale of the Tijuana Tapeworm

As my family picked at some spaghetti squash with much speculation and fear, my husband says, "Gotta go to the gym soon. Hmm.... this squash will give us some strange poops!"

You know, cause maybe it is an ADD thing but my husband is like .....(see the dog photo to the right), so we can talk about going to the gym and squiggly squash poops all in one breath.

Anyways, I am getting ahead of myself.

I'm no stranger to food poisoning / parasites like salmonella. They seem to like me.

When I was nine, we were at an airport in Puerto Rico and I was hungry, begin my mom for what else but ice cream? I mean, I was nine and we were in the tropics! But my mom is one of those healthy hippies (no, we never had tofu loaf, but we did cook without salt and never were allowed to eat Kraft Mac and Cheese, Hamburger Helper, or really anything processed) and so she put her foot down. No ice cream! Airports aren't exactly havens for health food, so she directed me over to a fried chicken place, better than all that sugar and artificial stuff, right?

That night we had arrived to my grandma's home in California and she ordered pizza. Pizza! Grandmas are awesome! I love pizza (loved, at nine, and still love) so I was totally into it. Until the pizza arrived and I lay on the couch moaning in pain. Turned out I had salmonella. I was so sick that I didn't want to open my Christmas presents or birthday presents the next few days!

I also got dysentery, aka Montezuma's Revenge, in Tijuana in my early 20s. Those street tacos were the first Mexican cuisine I ever liked, and on a budget, the only food I could afford and I ate tacos like nobody's business. And then I got not the regular old variety of dysentery mind you, but a four month long diarrhea fest. I recall it beginning somewhere near San Diego, me barfing out the side of the car, smearing parasitic taco all over my car and the 5 Freeway. I couldn't keep more than rice or broth down for months, and had to nap after every class to keep up.

On my first year marriage anniversary, I lay in bed moaning yet again. I ended up having things come out of both ends at the same time, and got so ill I was in and out of consciousness. MY husband rushed me to ER (I do not recall going, just him picking me up off the bed and suddenly I was in ER, like that transponder thing in Star Trek), hooked up to IVs.

A little bit after that bout, I was healthy again and went to the theater to watch a movie with my husband. I had to go to the restroom part way through, and as I went to flush, I gasped. My poo had....something...oh my God.... I ran out at lightning speed, probably white as a ghost, and went into the dark theater and began to pull my husband's arm. "I know this is gross but please. Please come with me to the bathroom" I pleaded, in tears.

He followed his sobbing wife into the women's room and into the stall and...

"Oh. You had hot and sour soup right before the movie. It's the bamboo shoot. Let's go finish the movie"

See? This is why I love my husband, he left a movie, snuck into the women's room, and looked at my poop. What a hero.

So flash forward about nine or ten years, to tonight.

As we pick at our squash, he says, "remember that poop you had me look at years ago? It was a worm". I pause and ask, "uh....you're joking....?" And he nods no and continues to pick at his meal. I ponder it a bit and repeat myself, "you're joking, right" and he nods no again, rests his fork on his plate, and says, "yeah I didn't want to scare you. I've been to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, I've seen tapeworms in jars. More than I would have liked to. It was totally a tapeworm. That medicine for that food poisoning must have killed it. It was a good sized one too, man, impressive. Well, I gotta go to the gym, see ya" and he grabbed his keys and left.

A. tapeworm. was. inside. me.