I have survived my first illness of the year. Working in water and sanitation, I am very aware of the little things that can lurk in food and water that you really don’t want to ingest. I spend my time trying to decrease people’s risk of getting sick from contaminated water and contaminated food. I guess it is about time one of these organisms struck back!

I woke up on Sunday not feeling very well – slightly nauseous and, without going into details, needing to use the toilet quite often. I couldn’t eat breakfast, so went back to bed. To be safe, Susana (the woman I live with and my boss), called a doctor. This is the point where my food was coming up as well. Lucky for me, doctors make house calls in Bolivia, even on a Sunday – for the low low price of 200Bs (about $30). Within 30 minutes the doctor was in my room giving me a full check-up to determine what the problem was. Her prognosis was that I have a bacterial intestinal infection, likely caused by E.coli or some other waterborne bacteria.