Sushi prompts a cake hour CPC

Things were looking a little dicey today.  The person who had signed up for the goodies had been out sick for the past three days and so our expectations were low. We had even started collecting some cash to go and raid the candy machine. Then we found our heretofore sick friend sitting in the coffee room with a homemade cake.  Taking his cake time obligation very seriously he rose from his sick bed to make sure fulfilled his duty. What a welcome surprise and how noble of him.

Another masterpiece from our pastry chef wannabe!

As a budding pastry chef, his spouse has taken to coming up with some good looking and good tasting treats. Today was not exception. We had a triple layer chocolate cake with a well decorated whipped cream frosting.  The chocolate cake was light and it had three layers with some strawberry puree or jam in between the layers.  The chef did not think this was too successful and that the layers were not prominent enough but we were fine with it.  As preferred the cake was not too sweet and the whipped cream is never anything we will complain about. The heap of cut strawberries on the top was the perfect finishing touch.

Well constructed sides~

Well decorated

A work of art for sure!

As mentioned today's provider had been out sick the past three days with fever and GI symptoms.  Interestingly another of our colleagues had also been out sick the week before with some similar symptoms. What did they have in common that might account for these maladies. They both had eaten sushi prior to the onset of the illness.  One of them had gone to an "All you can eat!" sushi restaurant. Some of us weren't too sure that is such a good idea but supposedly the food was fine or so we thought.
Sushi eaters beware!

Great finishing touch!

The layer's did not meed the chef's expectations but we were fine with it!

Discussions about what kind of malady struck prompted what might have been our first cake our CPC or clinical pathologic conference. Basically we heard what the symptoms were and then put the evidence together to come up with a diagnosis as to what caused him to get sick. He was admitted to the hospital mainly with a high fever and high heart rate (tachycardia)! He had an infectious disease consult and was told it was probably a viral infection of some kind but we begged to differ.  The high fever to us indicated a bacterial infection of some kind and the high heart rate frequently follows.  No antibiotics were given and after tossing a few things around we concluded he probably had salmonella.   Did you know most people have minor symptoms with salmonella and that frequently it will not  be treated with antibiotics to prevent the afflicted from becoming carriers.  Typhoid Mary step aside here comes Salmonella Sal. Since no cultures were taken, to our knowledge, we will never know definitively what he had but think our diagnosis is appropriate. Our advice to avoid similar circumstances - stay away from sushi during hot weather!