[Aurornis]

> but it's not clear (and probably never will be) how it made it into my bloodstream.

The term for this is “bacterial translocation”. The intestinal barrier isn’t perfect and some level of bacterial translocation from the GI tract to the bloodstream isn’t abnormal by itself. However, some combination of increased intestinal permeability, reduced immune defense, overgrowth of the bacteria in the GI tract, or mutations of the bacteria can lead to systemic infection.

They probably gave you the “inflammation” explanation because it’s more satisfying than “it happens some times and the potential causes are diverse”.

Glad you’re doing better.