SANTA ANA, Calif. -- What Laila Sultan says turned up in her clam chowder last year wasn't on the menu -- but it's on the court calendar now.

The 48-year-old Stanton resident said she was eating at McCormick and Schmick's Seafood Restaurant in Irvine on Feb. 26, 2002, when something rubbery stuck to her tooth.

"I thought it was calamari or shrimp or something like that, so I chewed one more time," she said. "It felt like rubbery. I told my friends, I said, 'My God, there's something in my mouth."'

According to her lawsuit scheduled for trial Jan. 12, it was a rolled up condom.

"And I threw it on the napkin, I took it out and we put it on the hand. It was my hand. And my friends said, 'Let's see what it is.'

"We thought it was a glove or something because it looks, like, white-ish," Sultan said. "And my friend said, 'My God, bring it closer. We brought it closer and we looked. It was a condom, such a big round condom.'"

"I said, 'Oh, my God' and I ran in the bathroom with another friend of mine, and I start(ed) throwing up," she said. "I threw up everything I ate there. Every single thing, I threw up in the bathroom."

Sultan, Paula Wild, Cindy Hammond and Annamarie Sigala are suing the restaurant, claiming negligence and infliction of emotional distress.

How could a condom get into the chowder?

That's a mystery, Patrick Stark, attorney for McCormick and Schmick's, told the Los Angeles Times.

The restaurant sued American Roland Food Corp., which supplied the clams, but a judge ruled for the supplier in September, according to the newspaper.

At the upcoming trial, the McCormick and Schmick's will argue "there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the restaurant was the source of the condom, or any employee of the restaurant," Stark told The Times.

"Either it came from (the four women), or it was thrown in as a practical joke by another patron at the restaurant."

The condom was seized by the restaurant manager, the women said, adding that he told them the insurance company had instructed him not to return it or let them photograph it.

The women contend the condom was "a possibly used one," but Stark told The Times that, because it was rolled up, "it was clearly unused."

Sultan and Wild told The Times the women have tested negative for HIV.

Still, "I went through hell," Sultan told The Times, adding that she has lost her appetite for food and sex, has dropped about 10 pounds, suffered psychological trauma, seen a psychiatrist for 18 months and taken medication for depression and anxiety.

Sultan said she is taking AIDS tests every six to eight months.

"There could be some disease," Sultan said. "We don't know. They never tested the condom. They never gave us back (the) condom until my last attorney went and took a picture."

Asked why the trauma has lingered so long, Sultan said, "It's not that easy" to get over.

"I wish (others) could put that thing in their mouth and feel how it felt," she said of her detractors.

"I felt very terrible. I was sick for almost one year and I'm still (sick). I have anxiety problems and I'm still using anxiety pills. It's very sickening and if they experienced it, they (would) know what "(I'm) going through," she said.