Welcome to strangers from KCW's independent producer project and storycentral.org.

My name is Leah Tao.

And as I've mentioned before on this podcast, I live alone with my two-year-old son.

So last year, I signed up for online dating.

I had wanted to call you in Tip Top Health.

That's Terry. He's one of the guys I met online. And he had some health issues. And instead,

I had to call you up and say, I'm really sick here. And I'm wondering if you might be able to help me.

By donating some of your child's stool so that I could do a transplant. And it was really kind of awkward. I think it was probably awkward

for both of us. You probably wonder why Terry wanted my son's poop.

But before we get into that, let me go back and tell you how we got to that point.

So shortly after I signed up for online dating, I came across this guy with cute pictures

and a well-written profile, and we corresponded a bit back and forth, and then he said,

I'm about to go to the UK for three weeks,

so I can't meet right away. And I said, okay, no problem. And then he wrote to me about a week

later from England and said, I suppose I should tell you the real reason why I'm here. I've come to

England to have 50 hookworms put inside my body. It turned out that Terry suffered from severe allergies and autoimmune issues,

and he'd gone to England to seek a treatment which is to intentionally insert

hookworms into your bloodstream.

It's illegal in the U.S., but it has a growing number of champions among people

with Terry's ailments.

It's essentially based on an idea called the hygiene hypothesis, which holds that our hygiene

is too good and that we're not exposed to enough germs.

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