Not much was known about the strand of bacteria call E. coli 0157:H7, when it entered my body in 1990. I was an unsuspecting eight year old who was looking forward to the first day of school in third grade. I never got there for that opening day. About five days before school started, I began to suffer from the symptoms of a low-grade fever, diarrhea, severe stomach cramps, and vomiting. I was taken to the doctor, but at that point I was only diagnosed with a stomach virus. At the end of the week, my symptoms made a turn for the worse. I was suffering from violent stomach cramps, and bloody diarrhea and urine. I had small bruises on my torso from internal bleeding, and my face was deathly white. I was quickly rushed to the emergency room, where after a blood workup, I was diagnosed with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, which effects the blood and the kidneys, and often occurs in children who have been infected with E. coli 0157:H7. For the next two weeks, I stayed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. My treatment included four blood transfusions, constant IV, and various vitamin and mineral supplements. I was lucky. I was fortunate to be at an age older than those who normally become victims of HUS. My kidneys did not totally shut down as they do with many patients with the syndrome. At the end of my stay I was weakened and I had lost several pounds, but I did not need dialysis or a kidney transplant.

As I look back on the circumstances surrounding my illness, the most remarkable part remains the lack of knowledge about the bacteria that had affected me. Throughout my hospital stay, teams of doctors would examine me and ask all kinds of questions about what I had eaten, and if I had been on a recent vacation. Their suspicion was understandable. It wasn't until a year later when the first publicized case of widespread E. coli contamination hit the media, after 27 people were infected with harmful E. coli after drinking cider from apples that had grown on a tree fertilized by contaminated fertilizer. In that same year, E. coli was found to be waterborne, when eighty people were infected after swimming in an Oregon lake. Perhaps the most publicized outbreak of E. coli infection was in 1993 when 500 plus people were infected after eating contaminated hamburgers at Jack-In-The-Box. I have never known the origin of my illness. It could easily have been caused by undercooked meat and also by a lake in Maine where we vacationed that summer.

Since those weeks in 1990, scientists and doctors have become much more aware of E. coli 0157:H7 and its harmful effects. Just two years ago, I was asked back to CHOP to participate in a follow-up study being performed on many of the former hemolytic uremic syndrome patients at CHOP. They were looking for possible long-term effects. Just recently, new information has been released on E. coli 0157:H7 infiltrating fresh fruit juices and vegetables. The Odwalla apple juice caused seventy people to fall sick, and one child died after kidney failure from HUS. These new problems caused by E. coli 0157:H7 are now beginning to send some worry through the consumers of America. They, like me, are surprised at the ability of a strand of bacteria to cause such wide scale illness, but as one individual, I've experienced it firsthand.