Olivia Johnson

Her First Symptom Was a Stomachache

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I'm not much for posting on Facebook. My daughter set this up so I could see pictures of the grandkids. But something happened to me this summer, and I've decided I'd rather embarrass myself in front of everyone than have it happen to one of you. So bear with an old woman. This is a little long. I've grown my own vegetables for over forty years. Beans, chard, kale, tomatoes, more zucchini than anyone could ever want. My late husband built the raised beds the year we retired. Every morning I'm out there with my coffee before the dew burns off. It's where I talk to the Lord, and it's where I talk to Frank. This past July, my grandson came over to mow, and he found me face down in the bean rows. I don't remember falling. I remember feeling dizzy and thinking I'd just kneel for a minute. The next thing I knew, he was turning me over and yelling "Grandma! Grandma!" with dirt in my mouth and his phone in his other hand, already calling 911. At the hospital, they said I was badly dehydrated. They gave me two bags of fluid and asked me a lot of questions, and that's when it all came out. I'd been sick for a long time. I just hadn't told anybody. By suppertime I'd be so swollen I'd change into my nightgown at six o'clock just to get out of my waistband. My bowels hadn't been regular in years. I'd go days with nothing, and then it would come on so suddenly I'd have to leave my cart in the middle of the grocery store. I'd stopped going to Wednesday Bible study because the church bathroom is clear at the other end of the building. And I was tired. Lord, I was tired. Tired in a way a nap didn't touch. The doctor called it a stomach bug on top of my age. He told me to drink more water and sent me home. My daughter drove me back from the hospital, and that night she sat on the edge of my bed and showed me an article on her phone. She said, "Mom, I'm not trying to scare you. But read this." It was about a woman in Australia, 64 years old, not much younger than me. She liked to pick a wild green that looks like spinach from the edge of a lake near her house and cook it for supper. Her first sign was a stomachache. Then diarrhea. Then fever and a cough, and she couldn't catch her breath. Her doctors ran test after test and found nothing. By the next year, she was forgetting things and feeling low. They scanned her brain and found a spot. A surgeon went in and pulled out a live roundworm more than three inches long. It was still wriggling. It was a worm that normally lives in pythons. A python lived near that lake, and its droppings had gotten on the greens she picked. Now, I want to be fair. Her case was very rare. Her immune system was already being held down by medicine she was taking, and that probably let the worm travel the way it did. Most people will never go through anything like that. But I read one part three times. It started in her stomach. And for a long time, nobody looked there. I handed my daughter back her phone and looked out the bedroom window at my garden in the dark. The neighbor's cats use my beds for a litter box. I've chased them out with a broom a hundred times. There are birds, raccoons, and a possum that lives under the shed. And forty years of me pulling a carrot, wiping it on my pants, and eating it right there standing in the dirt. I don't think I've worn my gardening gloves more than a dozen times in my life. I didn't sleep much that night. My friend Doris from garden club has done a cleanse every spring and fall for twenty years. I always teased her about it. I called her the next morning and didn't tease her one bit. She told me most of the store kits don't work, because these things hide behind a slimy film they make around themselves and their eggs. You might get some of the grown ones, but the eggs hatch a few weeks later and you're right back where you started. Her mother taught her you have to use the old bitter herbs, all together. Wormwood. Black walnut. Clove for the eggs. Pumpkin seed, so they let go and actually come out. And oregano. She uses one called Holior. It's all of those, pressed in oil in a soft little capsule, so it gets past your stomach and does its work where it needs to. You take three in the morning before you eat. I take them right after I feed the birds, before my coffee. Easier than remembering my blood pressure pill. The first few days, I stayed home. I'd planned to stake the tomatoes. The tomatoes waited. Then one evening, about three weeks in, I was standing at the stove making supper. It was nearly seven o'clock, and I looked down and realized I was still in my jeans. Buttoned. Comfortable. I had to sit down at the kitchen table for a minute. I couldn't remember the last time. I went to Bible study that Wednesday. I sat in the second row, the one nearest the door, out of habit, and I never once had to get up. Afterward I stayed for coffee and cake, and I talked for an hour. My grandson came by to mow last week and found me out in the beans again. Standing up this time, with my gloves on. He gave me the biggest hug. So here's what I want my gardening friends to know. Wear your gloves. Keep the cats out of your beds if you can. Wash everything you pick, even if you're going to cook it. Wash your hands before you eat, every single time, even if it's just one cherry tomato off the vine. And if you've been feeling poorly for a long time, don't just tell yourself it's your age. I did that for years, and it put me in the ER. That poor woman in Australia was told a lot of reasonable things. And the whole time, it started in her stomach. Holior is running buy 2, get 1 free right now with a 30-day money-back guarantee. I got the extra one for Doris, though I suspect she has plenty. God bless, and wash your carrots. P.S. If you garden, keep pets, or eat anything grown in soil, you've had the exposure. That woman only found out because hers went somewhere a scan could see. Most of us never get a warning like that. I got mine face down in the beans.