The sandwich that changed my life

Boxing Day 2005
Jeremy and I were spending our last day in Barcelona. After discovering that the Gaudi museum was closed we trekked up to another museum, I can't even remember the name, we were so tired that we mostly just wandered around the grounds, in my memory it merges with Montremartre in Paris. A mix of hilly terrain and graffiti in foreign languages. We walked down the hill and found a cafe that was serving sandwiches and tapas. We ordered potato salad, onion and tomato salad and I had an omelet and ham sandwich.
There was nothing remarkable about this sandwich. It was tasty, i barely remember noticing that it was a tiny bit runny.
Later that night we met up with our Catalan friend Silvia and had churros and suiza and then she drove us to the airport. We got back to canceled trains at Gatwick and freezing cold London weather. It took ages to get back to our flat and by the time we got home we were both grumpy and tired.
The next day we walked down to our high street to get some groceries and I began to experience so intense stomach cramps. Sharp horrible pains that made me want to double over. I walked home and left Jeremy with the shopping.
At first we thought it was just a bad a stomach virus. Everyone was in the grips of a horrible puking/pooping virus right then and in Barcelona we had visited with our friend Cristina who was recovering from said virus. I saw my GP who seemed unconcerned and my blood tests came back showing that I had some sort of infection, which was in keeping with the accepted theory. Over a week later I wasn't any better. In fact I was suffering from sharp horrible pain in my lower back as well now. We went to the out of hours clinic and the dr there decided I had some sort of infection, probably kidney. We know now that it was more likely a bowel infection.
He prescribed antibiotics and I saw my regular GP who said I was safe to fly home for our planned trip to Chicago and Detroit.
When we got to Chicago my toes and the left side of my jaw started to hurt. By the time we were in Detroit my ankles and knees were in the mix. By the time we returned home my hips had joined the party.
I went back to my GP and gave him the run down of all my strange ailments. I created a calender of sickness to show him the timeline of all the symptoms. he half listened and then said, 'Well, what do you want me to do about this?' I sputtered and stuttered and said 'I want you to make me better.'
He didn't.
Two days later I woke up and could barely support myself, the pain in my ankles and feet was so bad. I called a taxi and went to A&E where I was examined quickly but still had to wait 6 hours for a diagnosis. Reactive arthritis caused by some sort of infection. Somebody else just down the hall had the same symptoms as me. I thought maybe we could form a club. The doctor who saw me that day was great. She loved my calender of sickness and the photo I took of my sausage toes to show friends back home. She commended me on my diligent note taking.
She gave me strong pain pills. Dr Lacey, I commend you.
I went back to my GP once more and was greeted with the same disregard and nonchalance.
I got a new GP.
My new GP ran the right tests and we discovered that I had Salmonella. Then she told me all about how 10% of the people who get Salmonella will also suffer from strange side effects, one of the most common is reactive arthritis caused by the bacteria moving into your joints. I am like the luckiest lady in the world.
She got me into a rheumatology clinic where they gave me steroid shots and drained my giant swollen knee.
They told me it would last for 6 months to a year.
Then about 8 months later they said, oh no more like a year to 18 months.
Then they said, oh probably more like 2 years.
Yesterday I asked the rheumatologist why the time line kept increasing. She said, 'Honestly, because we don't really know. With some people it does go away entirely in that first timeline, for some people they always experience mid level pain, and some people always experience very bad pain. At this point it sounds like you are in that second group. And while it's not as bad as it could be, it is an irritation.'
I take a bit of offense at having this referred to as an irritation like it's something I can ignore. I know that it's mostly gone and I am lucky it isn't worse, but it is hard to feel THAT lucky when you've just been told that your joints are probably never ever going to be normal again. The pain I have in my knees right now, the pain in my hip when I wake up in the morning, the horrible foot cramps I get whenever the temperature drops, they are not going away.
Therefore I am feeling pretty fucking sorry for myself right now. I am pissed off that I ever ate that fucking sandwich. And I am pissed off that one dodgy sandwich could have altered my life so much. And I'm pissed off at myself for being such a baby, but I'm tired of always having something sort of wrong with me and now I am facing the fact that there will always be something sort of wrong with me and that's just shitty. Not as shitty as having my hands chopped off or getting cancer or being paralyzed or any number of horrible things really, but still shitty.
So the moral of this story is, I guess, watch the state of your eggs (especially in Barcelona) because a sandwich can change everything, and rarely for the better.
Although, wouldn't it be great if there was a sandwich that cured Salmonella and reactive arthritis? I would eat that sandwich every single day, even if it had anchovies!