Schlegel 1

Addie Schlegel
Ms. Reed
Honors Earth/Environmental Science - Period 1
17 October 2019
Cyclosporiasis Research Paper
My name is Addie Schlegel. I am a sixteen year old girl with type-one diabetes living in
New York City. One month ago, on July 29, 2018, I went to my older brother’s graduation. I got
to watch him walk across that stage in his navy blue gown, the proudest I’ve ever been. After
graduation, a bunch of families went to The Italian American Community Center in Albany. We
ate a delicious buffet where they served spaghetti, salad, french bread, soda, water, and cake for
dessert. Needless to say, it was delicious. We went home after the meal and had a small
gathering with friends and family to celebrate my brother going to college. Fast forward a few
days, four days to be exact, and I was incredibly sick, stuck going between my bed and bathroom
for days. I had horrible, watery diarrhea and my stomach hurt ​really​ bad. I was bent over in pain
all the time and I lost a lot of weight because I couldn’t eat anything. My parents drove me to
urgent care a few blocks down the road. There, the doctors were asking where I’ve been the past
few days in order to track down how I could have gotten sick. I told them about my brother’s
graduation, the buffet, the party, school, and all the meals I had had in the past three days. As
soon as I told the doctor what I ate at the buffet, his eyes widened and something seemed to click
in his brain. He said, “There have been ten other people who have come in in the past few days
who all went to that restaurant after their family member’s graduations.” I knew the words he
was saying but I didn’t know what it meant. Suddenly, a breaking news story came on the TV in
the room saying, “BREAKING NEWS -- THE ITALIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
CENTER HAS BEEN FOUND TO HAVE A PARASITE CALLED CYCLOPORA. IF YOU
HAPPENED TO EAT THE SALAD FROM THIS RESTURAUNT PLEASE CONTACT
YOUR NEAREST HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY.” If I wasn’t terrified before, that certainly
freaked me out. My doctor told me not to pay attention to that. He explained that the parasite
isn’t actually that dangerous. For most people, after a few days of contamination, they will just
naturally pass it through excretion on their own. For others, they needed an antibiotic to help it.
However, people with a weakened immune system, like myself, needed extra care. My body
couldn’t fight the parasite on its own. I would need a concoction of antibiotics and monitoring to
make sure I wasn’t dehydrated and I wasn’t getting worse. If I did start getting worse, they could
tube-feed me so that I was getting enough food and my blood sugar didn’t drop. What the doctor
also told me was that this parasite was kind of complicated. Cyclosporiasis is transmitted through
feces but person-to-person transmission is unlikely. An infected person can transmit
non-infected, immature oocysts through handshakes or human interaction. If this happens, the
parasite dies because it is not in favorable conditions. However, an infected person who, say,
works at a restaurant as a chef can not wash their hands after they use the restroom and then
touch fresh produce. The produce is most likely staying in moist conditions, providing the
 Schlegel 2

oocysts with the time to mature and become infective. Once this happens, an unsuspecting
individual might eat that produce and thus become infected. This is an example of what could
have given me cyclosporiasis but another possibility is that my lettuce, carrots, or any other
vegetables in my salad could have been transported from another country where sanitation is
less-monitored and over the course of shipping, the parasite matures and once I ate the food, it
infected me and many other people. Knowing this gave me some peace of mind because I knew
that I didn’t get infected from food at my house and I couldn’t have gotten infected by a friend or
family member. I decided to get a prescription of antibiotics and go home, where my mom would
monitor me. After three days, I was starting to improve. I still had regular stomach aches but the
explosive diarrhea was gone and I was starting to hold down small amounts of food. I continued
to watch the news and unfortunately, I saw that the numbers of infected people were rising. Now,
there were hundreds of cases all around the northern area of the country that had been discovered
between May and August of 2018. I began teaching people about the effects of cyclospora and
how dangerous it can be to someone with a weak immune system. With support from my family
and friends, I made a full recovery and live a normal, healthy life. This being said, I will never
go back to The Italian American Community Center in Albany again.