Updated 01:05 | Published 00:41
Doralice, 47, ate homemade pesto she bought at a local food market.
The next day she became acutely ill and collapsed in the hospital parking lot.
Then she stayed for a year.
The nightmare for Doralice Carneiro Sobreira Goes began late last January.
Then the 47-year-old from Brazil took out the jar of homemade pesto that she bought a couple of weeks earlier at a food market.
– It tasted excellent, she tells Jam Press.
Collapsed in hospital parking lot
But after sleeping for eleven hours, she awoke to strange pains.
– My body felt strange, I had difficulty breathing and my tongue stung.
Doralice got into the car and drove two miles to the nearest hospital.
And there she would remain for a long time.
– After I parked the car, my body stopped working. I couldn’t move so I had to get out of the car, she says.
– I saw a nurse walking with a wheelchair and shouted for help.
The 47-year-old vomited and had difficulty breathing. A neurologist at the hospital determined that Goes was basically paralyzed. She could only move two toes.
Suffering from a panic disorder
The doctors realized that she had suffered from the dreaded disease botulism, which is caused by a bacterial toxin.
Had she not sought care so early, she could have died.
In classic botulism, one has been poisoned by improperly prepared food, where the bacteria could grow and form toxin and which was also not cooked before consumption, the Public Health Agency states.
A shot glass of pure botulinum toxin would be enough to kill the entire population of Sweden.
At the hospital, they immediately suspected the pesto that Goes had eaten.
– It was one of the few things I had eaten before and it was homemade, she says.
Played ping pong
The symptoms of botulism are many – and frightening. They include dry mouth, difficulty swallowing, visual disturbances, drooping eyelids, vomiting, convulsions and paralysis.
Usually the symptoms appear between 12 and 36 hours after being affected by the bacterial poisoning.
Goes received an antidote to the disease. But the treatment of the effects of the disease meant that she remained in the hospital for a year.
– I received treatment every day. Slowly but surely, I regained the strength in my body, says the 47-year-old.
– When I got stronger in the upper body, I also practiced by playing table tennis.
For some time now, she has been allowed to return home. Now she can go to the toilet and eat without help.
Poisoned at the pub
– I have been able to breathe on my own for the past nine months. I have a walker that I use to get around, but it’s still difficult, says Goes.
The disease botulism is relatively uncommon. Since 1969, around thirty cases have been discovered in Sweden.
But just two weeks ago, the poisoning caught the eye when about a dozen guests at a wine bar in Bordeaux, France fell ill after eating improperly pickled sardines.
A 32-year-old woman died and five people needed intensive care.
For Doralice Carneiro Sobreira Goes, the nightmare meant that she completely changed her shopping habits.
– I am careful when I buy food from restaurants, smaller shops and markets. I now prefer to buy from larger manufacturers to avoid more accidents.