Peter vs. A Pepperoni Stick

Funny thing is, I was in the process of writing an entry about this news story before this had happened.

I had a very rough day today. Earlier this weekend, I was a little under the weather. I had severe cramps and a few other symtoms that I’m not willing to get into right now. It was really bad over the weekend, but I thought nothing of it. Took lots of fluids, ate light and worked my way through it or so I thought. Yesterday on many Canadian websites, Maple Leaf increased the size of their recall after listeria bacteria was detected on some of the goods produced at one of the company’s Toronto plants. Currently, at least 12 people infected with Listeria traced back to a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Ontario have died. Of course since I am concerned about ourselves and the kids (If you live in an area that gets these products, click HERE to check it out). I took the time to read through the list, and to my surprise… I got a hit with the updated list.

Turns out the no name cooked ham that we purchased over the weekend was recalled. Thankfully it wasn’t opened yet, and Leah made the phone call to the company to find out if this was indeed the recalled product. It was the same product that was recalled, but because of the number on the product, the date on the meat we had purchased according to the people we were talking to was not part of the recall. Airing on the side of caution, we tossed it out. Last thing we needed to do was eat it and then watch the dates on the recalled meats increse the next day or week. Unfortunately we bought another pack of ham two weeks ago, and were unable to recover the package to see if it was one of the recalled meats.

Leah was looking over the list and while I was cleaning up a bit she called out to me in the kitchen, “What is the name of that pepperoni stick that you eat?”

I called back to her that the one I’ve been eating for the last while was ‘Shopsys’ because whenever I took Ethan to the dollar store to pick up a toy for himself (reward for being good) I would always pick of 4 or 6 cause they’re two for a dollar. She then called me back into the room to check out the recall list:

This was not good cause over the past two weeks, I must have consumed at least a dozen of these friggin’ things so what I needed to do was find one of them and see if the serial number matched up. I had eaten all the sticks I had in the house, so I fished four packages out of the trash:

When I realized the four packages I took out of the trash matched the numbers in the recall, I was a little freaked out. I didn’t think this was a bad thing cause it was Shopsys, and not Maple Leaf meats, but when I looked at the fine print on the pepperoni stick… there it was ‘Maple Leaf Consumer Foods’. First words that popped into my head: Frack. Super Frack. Mother Fracker!!!

First, I really enjoy eating these sticks when I’m writing something and want something small to munch on. I’ve been eating too many of them so there is no telling how many I’ve eaten in the last while is possibly tainted. I’ve eaten at least a dozen in the last two weeks, and there’s a good chance all of those were tainted. The other rough part is that I was already over the last weekend showing symptoms of something that’s been illing everyone from the bad meats, so this too was not good.

After talking to a nurse (my Mom) and contacting the help line that came with the recall list, it was evident that I had to go to emerg. Leah asked me when was the last time I consumed the last sticks, and that was this morning when I was writing a survey on Open Diary … I had two of them. I got one real ugly look from my wife before getting dressed to go and taking off for the hospital. I got there around 3pm, and I was only in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before getting a private room and a bed to do the rest of my waiting on. I spent the better part of the next eight hours getting tested, got fluids IV’d into me and had some x-rays taken. It was a long time waiting for those blood results to come back.

Basically what I was told is that nothing dangerous was found in the tests but because I wasn’t showing the biggest symptoms (fever, chills) that I could go home but keep an eye on things. Because something could break out anytime within the next 30-90 days and I had consumed the recalled stuff over the weekend and today… I’ll have to wait and see if things stay the same or get worse. I was ordered to keep fluids high, watch out for the bigger symptoms and stay away from the pepperoni sticks for he next while. Didn’t have to tell me twice, I’m off them for a very, very long time.

So that was my Tuesday, hopefuly everyone elses wasn’t as hectic. I will post some more interesting stuff about it tomorrow, but until then take care and I’ll be around.

Peter