Deer meat, or venison, was a staple at Amy’s dinner table.

Me, never liked it, preferred grain-fed beef.

Guess I’m just a suburban kid.

A Brookfield, Wisconsin,  man says he and 10 of his friends all became violently ill after sharing a meal of home-cooked wild venison, but what made them sick remains a mystery.

Scott Mathison said the symptoms didn’t appear for five days after his church retreat to Black River Falls October 1st.

“I could feel the life leaving my body. I knew something was something really serious,” Mathison said Friday. “I was violently shaking, had a 104 (degree) fever when my wife took me in to urgent care. If I wouldn’t have been treated, I’m not sure I would’ve came through that.”

While the symptoms included night sweats and high fevers, the lack of gastro-intestinal issues convinced Mathison that he didn’t have food poisoning. And he later learned that he wasn’t alone in feeling ill.

“I found out one of the other guys was sick, and then I found another one was sick and so we started calling and checking and we were all having the exact same symptoms, and we realized we didn’t have the flu,” he said.

Mathison said their doctors still don’t know what ailed the men, but antibiotics seem to help.