To avoid food poisoning, you must know what you consume. Do not consume expired/bad/moldy etc. food/drink. That is the common information that we already know. But I miss one aspect: how the food is prepared. I ate pisang goreng last Sunday. It was raining and I stopped for a while to buy lunch at 3pm (it was a late lunch indeed). I saw this small stall selling pisang goreng with no customers for more than 15 minutes. I felt sad. “Why not buy something?” I said to myself. With RM2 worth of pisang goreng, the seller gave me more than what I paid. Little that I know it was the beginning of a nightmare that I experienced for a few days.
After eating a few pieces of pisang goreng, I felt weird. “This is unusual” I thought. Around maghrib, the stomach pain became unbearable. While performing maghrib prayer, I nearly fell down as I prostrated (sujud). “Is this the way how my life ends?” I thought to myself as I performing sujud. My cat sensed something was not right. She did not leave my side as I prayed. When I lay down on my bed, she plopped herself besides me and purred. My cat, Robyn always does that when she senses that I am not feeling well or I am sad. By the time Isya’ prayer, I found it difficult to stand without clutching my stomach and my legs started to tremble. I could not stand still.
I tried to find whatever ointment that I could put on my stomach to each the pain. I found my late mom’s minyak kayu putih (eucalyptus oil). At this point, I just couldn’t care to check the expiry date. I attempted to endure the unbearable pain for as long as I could. I started to vomit several times through out the night. I googled symptoms of food poisoning. What I experienced was just vomiting within hours after eating pisang goreng. Diarrhea may follow but I didn’t experience that. I asked my niece (an MD) the cure to food poisoning. She told me that normally food poisoning could stop within 24 to 72 hours with no medication. She advised me to avoid solid and spicy food. I ended up of not eating anything, just drink to keep myself hydrated for around 2 days since the first symptom appeared.
But by the third day, the stomach pain still persisted. So I went to homeopathy clinic. Why homeopathy? Well, I just wanted to try out alternative treatment. Alhamdulillah after taking the medication for one day, the stomach pain was gone. No vomiting. But I had to deal with the aftermath of food poisoning. I could not take any spicy food for a while. My stomach becomes sensitive towards specific food. This is not good. But I guess this is life. There are things that I have to let go and no longer can enjoy.