Bad Beans

Last Monday I was taking a break out in the Farm and Garden area of our school and I had only eaten a bit of a bagel for lunch. Normally people munch on the snap peas and cherry tomatoes from the garden and I was a bit hungry so I opened up a few of the bean pods and nibbled on them rght off the vine. They were pretty crunchy but some were tender enough to eat and why not have some extra protein, right?

It was a stormy afternoon of heavy rain. I managed to bike home during a lull in the storm and cleaned off my dirty bike like an OCD person. A few minutes later I was hit with a wave of nausea the likes of which I can't recall. I was in the middle of leaving a message on my friend's voicemail and ended it with. "Good lord, I have to go I'm going to throw up." I did throw up. In fact I threw up every five minutes for the next four hours and fourty minutes. I immediately called my nanny. Yes, I have a nanny. She's really just a good friend that gives me a lift and helps keep me organized at times but I call her my nanny and she doesn't mind. So this throwing up baffles me until I see these tiny bits of bean coming up and taste what I can only describe as a bile and poison mixture in my mouth. Vile.

My nanny arrives to find me sprawled out on the bathroom floor. By now my stomach is empty and nothing but bile is coming up. There is a searing pain in my stomach that continues to build. Then the other end of my body starts to do the same thing. Nothing quite like puking while already on the toilet. And the good times were just beginning. I ended up just getting into the shower and lying down.

My nanny googles beans + poison and discovers this.

It was quite a torturous experience. She called the doctor and they told her to get me to a hospital if I was still throwing up at 9pm. I stopped at 8:45pm and was happy not to have to take a trip to the E.R.. I was already pretty dehydrated before the nastyness started and the cramping was pretty unpleasant. Then there were the toxins that made me start to shake pretty violently and the soarness in my muscles that made it feel as if I had be hit with a hammer in all my muscles. At one point the only parts of my body that didn't hurt were my earlobes

I've had food poisoning a few times before and it was nothing like this. I was worried at one point that I had done myself in and it was quite scary. I spent the next day recuperating from the physical toll that had been placed on my body. When I finally was able to drink some tea and eat a grape it tasted like the finest thing I had ever eaten. A few days later my chest muscles were still sore and I needed a belt for jeans that were normally quite snug.

So kids. Don't eat raw beans.

xoxo

Kranki