Community Voices for Health

By: Kathy Trainor 

BBQ is something that we love and do almost every weekend from March to November. Everything from pork butts to ribs, and chicken wings to brisket. We fire up our smokers rain or shine.

BBQ is something we like to do to relax . My husband works long hours each day and I work a job that can be stressful. Together we kick back fire up the pits and cook. We found out a few years ago that we could actually compete in BBQ competitions. We tried our hand and our first competition, and despite the face that it RAINED all day, it didn’t make us stop. We placed 4th and knew we wanted to sign up for more.

This weekend was no different than any other. We were at a new competition and it had 7 meats to turn in over 2 1/2 days.  It was longer than what we usually do, but we were up to the challenge. We wanted to go to support the Brookline Fire Department in NH.  We arrived Friday to set up camp and start prepping for Saturday. Saturdays competition included pizza, shrimp, beef, dessert and a mystery event where we had to BBQ a turkey, but include swedish fish, craisins, a lemon grass oil and a spicy pepper flake vinegar.

As per usual, we loved the whole day. We won 2nd place in the shrimp category, 2nd place in the chopped event, and 5th in beef.  We didn’t place well in Pizza or Dessert. Oh well, you can’t win them all. We really were there to support the Brookline Fire Department. They did so much to make it a fun day. The Brookline Fire Department also fed us a lovely chicken dinner after the awards were completed.

Sunday morning started just like another event we had done. Pits were started, we went to our meeting for the day, which is called the cooks meeting. During the meeting  I started to feel off, I was not feeling well and my stomach was nauseous. Despite the two bottle of water with breakfast, I thought I maybe I needed more fluid since it  had been 95 and very humid for the 2 days prior. I drank a sports drink in an attempt to try and rehydrate.  It was about 9:30am and I was sweating, and couldn’t stop. I drank another water and then around 10 am I sat down in a law chair because my heart wouldn’t stop racing. I knew something was wrong and I was very ill!

My husband got the Brookline Fire Department, who was all around us because it was their event…. To Be Continued.

Check back on 8/26 for the second part of Kathy’s post!