Poisoned | Diary of a Grieving Mother

Grief changes you. Apparently it also destroys your ability to follow basic chemical safety instructions.

Okay, not on purpose. I poisoned myself last night.

I really need to learn how to read labels.

I knew it was going to rain later in the evening, which would expand the fungus growing on my tomato plants. I’d already tried the homemade spray Mom made me a few days prior. It helped a little… but not enough. So my hubby, Justin, ordered the actual chemical spray, and it finally came in.

Last night, armed with two bottles of fungal death spray and apparently zero common sense, I marched out to the garden.

I used one entire bottle and had to open the second to finish. I have a lot of tomato plants. I used my free hand to lift leaves and make sure the spray coated every surface.

When I finally finished, I rinsed my hands quickly with the hose and went inside.

An hour later, I went back outside and grabbed two heads of lettuce for a salad.

You see where this is going.

I brought them inside, rinsed them off, chopped everything up, and made myself a beautiful salad.

It was delicious, by the way.

Another hour passed while I sat watching Jack Ryan.

That’s when my throat started hurting a little.

Maybe the tomatoes were too acidic, I thought.

Another hour passed.

Then it hurt worse. Something doesn't feel right.

And worse.

That’s when my brain finally wandered back to the fungal spray and the fact that I had potentially over sprayed onto the lettuce. And not only had I touched the lettuce with chemically contaminated hands… I also gave it the weakest rinse in human history before eating it.

Immediately I grabbed the bottle and flipped open the little safety label:

"There's a reason there's a safety label!"

Wear goggles.

Wear gloves.

Wear a mask.

Remove contaminated clothing immediately.

If inhaled, move person to fresh air.

If on skin, wash with soap and water for 15–20 minutes.

If ingested, call poison control.

You can clearly see where I failed.

So not only had the chemical been soaking into my skin for hours…

I had eaten it.

My mother's voice rang in my head, "You seriously didn't wear gloves?"

My second thought was, “Oh no.”

I grabbed my phone and Googled what symptoms ingesting poison lettuce might cause.

I never saw the answer because my intestines immediately attempted to evacuate my entire body.

I barely made it to the bathroom in time.

If you’re curious, the bottom end won.

I sat there with my throat burning from tongue to chest, struggling to swallow but thankfully still breathing fine. In between stomach cramps, I pulled up the symptoms list again.

Burning throat and mouth? Check.

Severe stomach cramping? Check.

Nausea or diarrhea? Aggressively check.

Skin irritation? Ironically, no.

I briefly debated calling 911.

But then another thought crossed my mind.

How exactly was I supposed to explain to my husband and family (none of whom were home of course since things like this only happen when he's out of town) that I’d ended up in the hospital because I accidentally poisoned myself with lettuce?

To be fair, they would absolutely believe I accidentally poisoned myself. That part wouldn’t shock anyone.

But with losing Aidan… would someone, even for a split second, wonder if I’d done it on purpose?

And honestly, if someone were trying to leave this world, surely there are less miserable methods than chemical lettuce.

So instead, I washed my hands and arms properly this time, drank water that felt like razor blades going down my throat, then sprinted back and forth to the bathroom for the next hour while Googling increasingly concerning things.

Eventually I asked the right question:

“Is ingesting Fung-onil fatal?”

Google replied:

“Ingesting Fung-onil is not usually fatal in small amounts, but may cause—”

I didn’t need to read the rest.

I was already living it.

Eventually I crawled into bed, exhausted, still cramping, still checking every few minutes to make sure breathing wasn’t becoming difficult. I turned Jack Ryan back on and sipped water like a survivor of a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

At one point I genuinely considered typing a draft text to my husband in case I died in my sleep, explaining just how unbelievably stupid his wife had been.

I decided against it.

And eventually, sometime after midnight, I fell asleep.

My final thought before drifting off was:

Please don’t let me die in my sleep. I cannot have “poisoned by idiocy” written on my headstone.

—Mary-Jo

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From the pages of Diary of a Grieving Mother