** Warning – Graphic! **
Last night it was finally my turn to get sick. I don’t mean the head cold or sore throat that is a minor inconvenience but really to effect a cure to these illnesses I need only to sit down and rest during the day, rather than run around cleaning, washing, drying, and kid-wrangling. I mean the kind of sick where the first leg of the journey consists of being entirely occupied with vomiting, the second leg body aches and chills and thrashing about in undefined misery, and finally – this afternoon, when I felt better – the kind of bone fatigue where the act of taking a hot bath wipes you out for a few hours.
I remember when I was pregnant I’d get sick, but really since then I haven’t been very much. I’m not much of a puker and no illness lasts me for very long. But last night, moments after my little family went to bed (my daughter dispensing medical advice such as, “Mama, if you’re a little bit sick, you should drink some peppermint tea. If you’re really sick, you should puke.”) I hit a cute little cycle of waking, a 15- to 20-minute nausea buildup, and then an extended puking session. Clean myself up, go back to bed. Repeat, each time feeling weaker and enjoying the taste of bile slightly less.
At about 1 AM I decided I was officially not having fun. One of the suckier parts of my vomiting marathon was that no one in my family knew it was going on, nor could they help. I was dastardly cold all night but so sick I couldn’t do anything about it. In bed I pushed, pulled, begged, yelled at Ralph to get up. Finally I crawled out of bed was best I could, hunted for the electric blanket control blindly and finally grabbed a down comforter. All the moving around triggered another bout of vomiting. I longed for release from misery but couldn’t fall asleep and couldn’t get warm and thus spent a night of suffering. Every time I’d crawl back to bed, incidentally, the entire family including the cat would roll over and clutch at me. Something I enjoy when I’m healthy; last night in my weakened state I could barely fight them off.
This morning I wasn’t much better. I sat awake but dizzy on the couch for hours. At 11 AM I was finally able to drink some tea. I have never enjoyed tea so much, even at the rate of a half sip every hour. After a long midday nap aided by Tylenol I could (and did) eat. It seems my body is gradually relinquishing its reign of terror and my hopes are that I can at least function relatively normally tomorrow.
To help me cope with all the ass time, Ralph rented me Season 1 Disc 1 of “House”, which I am enjoying (although it’s an awful program to watch when you’re ill). Hugh Laurie is one of those guys definitivy “not my type” whom I still find damn attractive, and his personality in the show just seals the deal. The show itself is only “decent television” rife with all the trappings of the various runoffs of the ER hospital daytime soap genre: cute doctors in tailored clothes, soft lighting, invasive “tender” piano music letting us know that yes, we’re supposed to be misty-eyed watching the hard-as-nails misanthrope MD holding the dead baby long after clinic hours are over.
And – with this blog entry I am once again shot. Here’s hoping I’ll wake tomorrow with my bodily faculties restored and hopefully a willingness to eat.