So just as I suspected, it’s the school canteen. The number of cases of vomiting and diarrhea among the students of my daughters’ school across different grade levels cannot be ignored. There were anecdotal evidence that the food from the canteen was the culprit. Now the school will be sending a survey form about this—I just don’t know what kind of survey this is.
So the lymph nodes that may have sprouted/gotten enlarged during Twin A’s MRI may have been caused by a festering issue about school food. Let’s see what the doctor would say. Literature says food poisoning can cause swollen mesentery lymph nodes…so that may account for the increase plus her exisiting TB infection. The timeline could be suspect as well because my daughter may have been subjected to bad school canteen food for weeks already. We had the scan on Feb 14 and a little over a week she was vomiting. She was already complaining about tummy aches a week before but she attributed it to her menstrual cramps. The problem with this kid is that she couldn’t distinguish the difference between menstrual cramps and stomach cramps. 🤦🏻♀️ She couldn’t also tell whether her stomach feels acidic (maasim).
Anyway, this made me feel a lot better. The fearful me is always scared that the lymphoma threat is back. Because you know, genetics is shit.
I’m already sleepy. Will write later about the shit I had to go through the whole of Monday because of that compliance issue with one of my journos. I need to get it out of my system.
In my annoyance at the school, which has ruled food deliveries are banned, I wrote the school administration a letter this morning:
Dear Ma’am/Sir:
I would like to request for the easement of the rule on food deliveries for students considering the stomach ailments from (school name redacted) students the past week.
My Grade 7 twin daughters had amoebiasis in October last year and my mother, a biological scientist, had our water sources tested by one of her colleagues at the ____________. All samples yielded negative results for protozoa. I speculated that it probably came from the school canteen (either from food or from the water offered there) as no one in my household nor our neighbors (in my mother’s household) were infected.
Last week, I had to rush my immunocompromised daughter, ____________, to the ________ emergency room for her constant vomiting and diarrhea. Her sister, __________, was also suffering from diarrhea but was in a better position. __________’s stool sample showed a high count of bacteria and some pus. I want to point out that several of their friends were also suffering from the same symptoms that same day or the previous day. I also learned that some students from other grade levels (as told to me by a friend who has a 6th Grade daughter in __________) suffered the same fate. One thing that was common among them was that they ate something from the school canteen.
Now, not all parents are able to send hot lunch boxes to school as some of us are solo parents with full-time jobs, thus, do not have the bandwidth to cook daily. I also must travel frequently for my job and the only way now that I can have my children fed during lunch is to have food delivered by __________’s, a caterer that my brother, (his job title and where he works redacted), has been using for their office catering needs. So far, they have not had any food poisoning issues whatsoever. __________’s also delivers to other schools like ________________ and I have not heard of stomach ailments from students dependent on their food deliveries.
I hope that you consider my request as this would ease my harried working solo mother’s mind. I cannot have my daughters suffer from food poisoning again just because the only available option to them is the questionable food from your canteen.
Thank you very much.
I was so angry when I learned from Twin I that they cannot receive food deliveries “for food safety reasons.” Being this inflexible and slow to act on the issue of bad school canteen food can kill their students!
