The verdict is in...

Campylobacter jejuni:

So, for those that don't know...my hubby and I went to Peru on a mission trip, June 23 - July 1st. We had an amazing trip...spent time with the people of Juliaca, Peru, ministering to them and worshiping with them! Our church, Bethlehem Baptist, is partnering with a church in Juliaca, Iglesia Bautista, to reach the people of Chupa. So, we really got to spend time with the pastor of this church and its congregation. It was great!

We flew back home on Tuesday night (we left Lima at midnight) and flew into ATL around 7:45am on Wed. morning. We then flew from ATL to CLT and landed around 1PM. My parents met us there with Ian! We were so excited to see him! He was standing at the bottom of the escalators with flowers and a card for us. It was so sweet...and I literally lost it and cried when I saw him.

We then left the airport and decided to go eat at Cracker Barrel as a group. Still feeling fine at this point.

We got home and I started feeling bad. Body aches and stomach ache. As the night went on, it got worse and worse. I woke up Thursday morning around 1 and had a fever of 102...and my stomach was killing me. I won't go into details...but let's just say...I was VERY sick for a week. Ate nothing. Drank a little gatorade. Lost 5 lbs. No appetite. No energy. Oh, did I mention how AWFUL I felt?!

It was so bad one night, that Jason called my mom in the middle of the night at 3AM. I really was ready to go to the hospital. However, I just took some medication and laid back down.

So, I called my mom back the next morning and told her I needed to come to the dr. So, she made me an appt. After seeing the dr., he prescribed me Cipro.

After 5 days of Cipro, I felt better.

Felt good for 2 days.

Then, started going downhill again. Stomach issues all over again. Abdominal cramps...the whole 9 yards!

So, I finally told my mom, I cannot take this anymore...let's do what we need to do to figure out what it is that is wreaking havoc on my digestive system.

So, we sent off a sample last Thursday...they cultured it, and we got back the results today. Heavily positive for the Campylobacter jejuni bacteria.

FINALLY, we have a name for what ails me!!!

Anyway, according to Wikipedia, it is basically food poisoning..."contaminated food is a major source of isolated infections, with incorrectly prepared meat and poultry normally the source of the bacteria". You can click on the following link for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campylobacter_jejuni

I'm pretty sure that the source of this BAD BAD bacteria was a piece of chicken that I ate in Juliaca on Sunday night before we flew home. There were parts that were not quite all the way done...but I didn't realize it until I had already eaten part of it.

No big deal...just glad we now know what we were/are dealing with. As to what we are going to do from here...not sure. The jury is still out on that one. The dr. is supposed to look at the results and let me know this afternoon.

UPDATE:

The dr. is calling me in another round of Cipro. Hopefully this round will knock it out for good!