A Grand Junction teenager is responding to dialysis treatment after she ate a  McDonald’s Quarter Pounder in early October and was flown to Children’s Hospital Colorado with life threatening injuries ten days later.

Kamberlyn Bowler’s attorney said that the 15-year-old ate her usual McDonald’s orders of Quarter Pounders with extra pickles in late September and early October.

She started feeling ill Oct. 8 and  got worse in the following days, complaining to her mother that she had blood in her stool.

When emergency room doctors first attended to Bowler, they thought she might be suffering from appendicitis and sent her home.

Hospital progress notes from Oct. 17 obtained by The Denver Gazette show that at 9:51 p.m., Bowler was awake and talking to nurses but seemed “dazed.” The next day, she was in stage 3 acute kidney failure and rushed by air chopper to Children’s Hospital Colorado where she has been on dialysis for nearly two weeks.

She has had at least one blood transfusion according to her mother, Brytanee Randall.

Randall said in a Facebook post that Kamberlynn is improving, going “stir crazy” and wants to get back to school. Before the E. coli diagnosis, she told Denver Gazette news partner 9News, her daughter had no health issues and was active, a member of the high school softball team.

The FDA is still investigating whether slivered onions were the source of the E. coli outbreak which has sickened 75 people, hospitalized 22 and killed one Coloradan, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“While the investigation is ongoing, Taylor Farms, the supplier of slivered onions for the affected McDonald’s locations, has initiated a voluntary recall,” according to the FDA. “Recalled yellow onions were sold to additional food service customers.”

Of those 75 cases, attorney Ron Simon is representing 33 victims from ten states who tested positive for E coli after eating Quarter Pounders. Nine of those victims were hospitalized, two of whom suffered from HUS, or hemolytic uremic syndrome. HUS is a secondary infection related to E. coli that can be contracted from contaminated and unsafe foods.

Quarter Pounders returning to the menu

The Colorado Department of Agriculture completed testing on dozens of samples of frozen ground beef patties and found no evidence of E. coli. After that news broke, McDonald’s decided to return the Quarter Pounder to its menu in 900 stores in Colorado and Wyoming some time this week, but without slivered onions.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture reported that the federal investigation has focused on ground beef patties and onions and “at this time, CDA also has no information suggesting onions grown in Colorado are linked to this outbreak.”

An email request sent by The Denver Gazette to the Taylor Farms Warehouse in at 890 Newport Road in Colorado Springs was not returned.