Theresa Lewis

Many years ago, I had a problem with stomach ulcers. As part of my treatment, my doctor told me not to eat anything with a skin on it such as grapes, tomatoes, plums, etc. I was allowed to eat them as long as I peeled them first. Somehow, peeling grapes did not appeal to me so I avoided all fruit with skins on them.

I was living with my in laws at the time and my mother-in-law was adamant that I stick to my rigid diet for as long as I needed it. It was summer and to me summer was a time to eat a lot of fruit. When I whined about not being able to eat what I wanted, my mother-in-law reminded me that it was for my own good. Sometimes, she would peel tomatoes for me while I was at work because she believed everyone needed to eat tomatoes for their health.

One day, a neighbour came by with a large basket of damson plums from a tree in her back yard. She claimed that she had more fruit than she could possibly eat in a season so she wanted to share her bounty with us. Oh, those plums looked beautiful and luscious. My mother-in-law put them into a large bowl on the kitchen table. She said she had a plan to make plum dumplings with them.

I asked her if she had to peel them to make the dumplings and she said no, she did not have to peel them first. All day long, every time I passed through the kitchen, I longed for a plum. I resisted temptation all day until late that night after everyone had gone to bed. I went into the kitchen and stood looking at the plums. I spied a very small one and I snatched it from the bowl. I had been on that stupid diet for over a month and I reasoned that one tiny plum with the skin on would not do me any harm. I popped it in my mouth and began to chew and I savoured every bit of it. When I got to the stone, I realized that most plums have the flesh stuck to the stone, but this stone just fell out. I spit the stone onto my hand and with it came a bunch of maggots. I screamed and cried and jumped around as I tried to rip my own tongue from its moorings. I coughed and wretched then cried some more. My husband heard the kafuffle and came running. He saw the wormy pit on the table where I had dropped it and he laughed until he nearly fell over. I did not share his sense of humour about it. I wanted to cut my own head off and prayed that I would get amnesia so that I would never remember this traumatic event, but that did not happen. All night long, I imagined that I could feel worms crawling in the back of my throat.

The eating of a plum with the skin on did not aggravate my ulcer, but mentally, I was totally destroyed. To this very day, I cannot even look at a damson plum or prunes because they are made from damson plums. I cannot drink prune juice either. This happened so many years ago and I still have a hard time when I think about it.

The End