All it took was a piece of fermented swordfish the size of a quarter to land an Arizona woman in the hospital with a rare disease that left her paralyzed and gasping for breath.
Trinity Peterson-Mayes, 24, said in a telephone interview from her bed at a Phoenix rehab center that she's on the mend after her bout with botulism and expects to be discharged as early as Wednesday.
"Obviously I can talk again," she said with a chuckle. "And I can walk again. But I get tired very fast. I still can't believe how fast, and how sick, I got from that tiny bite of fish."
Peterson-Mayes, who is a wedding planner, added that she survived childhood cancer twice and knows it will be a while before she can "do all the things I used to do before I got sick, like eat normally, like take long walks."
"I've been down this road before," she said.
Peterson-Mayes said that a friend of hers had fermented some swordfish and that she and a half-dozen friends sampled it in February.
"It wasn't a dinner party," she said. "We tried the swordfish because we are all very health conscious and we heard this was supposed to be good for your gut."
How did it taste?
"Honestly, it was horrible," she said. "It was so bad I figured it might give me a stomach ache. But I did not expect this. It was a piece the size of a quarter. That's all it took to get so sick."
Peterson-Mayes said she tries to stay hydrated but a few days after sampling the swordfish, she found herself having difficulty swallowing water. And when she nearly choked on a cup of coffee, she headed to the hospital.
"The ER doctors at first couldn't figure out what was wrong and talked about sending me home," she said.
But Peterson-Mayes said her body was already shutting down and she was diagnosed with botulism after she was transferred to the St. Joseph’s Medical Center and Barrow Neurological Institute.
“Botulism is extremely rare, and most emergency physicians go their whole career without seeing a case,” emergency physician Dr. Frank LoVecchio told the NBC News affiliate in Phoenix.
On average, only about two dozen cases of food botulism are diagnosed per year in the United States, he said.
“It causes this paralysis of your muscles, and most important being, you know, your chest muscles, those that are responsible for breathing," LoVecchio told the affiliate.
Peterson-Mayes said that at one point, she lost the strength to breathe and lost consciousness. When she awakened, she was on a respirator.
"It was very scary," she said. "I woke up and I couldn't move at all. I wasn't able to talk. I wasn't able to walk."
Peterson-Mayes said the antitoxin was kicking in and she was starting to recover when she learned that two of her friends who had also tried the swordfish had contracted botulism.
Both of them were briefly hospitalized and are now recuperating at their homes, she said.
Meanwhile, Peterson-Mayer's mother started an online fundraiser to help cover the crushing medical care costs.
"I'll be getting outpatient therapy for while once they release me," the wedding planner said. "I'm definitely feeling better, but I don't know how long it will be before I'm back to normal."
Also, Peterson-Mayor said, she's making a big change in her diet.
"I mean, I love things like sushi, but I think it’s going to a while before I eat fish again," she said.
