VomitAttack

Warning: Welcome to TMI Thursday, where I will overshare about projectile vomiting. My excuse is that I live alone and have no one to share these things with as they happen. But that's really just a rationalization. I don't like to suffer in silence, and would probably write about this even if I lived in a house full of people. If I'm going to go through hell, I at least want to get a story out of it. Even a not very good one.

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It started on Tuesday night during my tennis match with TennisGirl. It was an early match, 5:30, so I drove directly from work and carb-loaded on the ride there. (I usually like to have some sort of pasta about an hour before I play.) I had some leftover tortellini I had made on Sunday. This was a new type of tortellini, in a plastic package in the Italian section rather than the frozen kind I usually get. It tasted great-- way better than the frozen kind. I don't know if the tortellini was bad or if I caught a bug, but I don't plan to eat any more of the leftovers.

As we were playing, I could feel my stomach getting upset. After the first set (I lost a close one, 6-4), I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, which I never do in the middle of a match. My head was hurting, I was nauseous, and I was feeling chills. After a few games in the second set (I was down 2-3), I told TG that something was really wrong with me, and I couldn't continue. I was feeling really bad. On the way home I had to pull over to the side of the road and throw up. It was very sudden, and although I was able to open the door and hurl on the ground, some of it got on the inside of the car door. Yuck.

I came home feeling sore and exhausted and immediately curled up on the bed, in my sweaty tennis clothes, and slept for two hours. Then I got up and had to shower before going to bed proper. I had to cut my shower short because I couldn't stand up anymore. It was a rough night. I got up twice and vomited into the toilet. The first time the heaving was accompanied by pains in my chest (an air bubble?) that felt like a heart attack. I lay on the bathroom floor, sure that this was The End. Surely death couldn't be any worse than this? I must have been quite a scene, because my cat came into the bathroom, mewing, trying to console me.

After that I took some Pepto Bismal, hoping that it would calm my stomach. Instead, what it did was add a little color to my next vomit attack at 2:00 am. I'd heard of "projectile vomiting" before, but this was the first time I'd ever really experienced it. I don't recommend it.

Meanwhile, trying to sleep in bed, I was in so much pain that I couldn't get comfortable. Even the cats were bothering me just by snuggling up against me. I kept having to shoo them off the bed.

In the morning I transferred to the couch, but was still in a lot of pain. I called in sick to work. I was afraid to take painkillers because they often upset my stomach even when my stomach is healthy. I finally tried an Excedrin, and it really, really helped. I was able to eat and keep down some chicken soup for breakfast and lunch. I took a two-hour late-morning nap. I was still queasy, headachy, and weak all day, but I no longer prayed for death.

I watched TV and napped all day. In the evening K and I had our mid-week phone call, 1.5 hours, and afterward I felt good enough to finally go out to the garage and clean the puke off the inside of my car door. Good times.

I'm at work today, still feeling slighty queasy and headachy, but on the road to full recovery. My stomach was growling all morning. The good news is that, in only one day with the stomach flu, I lost three pounds. You heard it here first: lose three pounds a day with the Snarkbutt Diet of Gatorade, chicken soup, and Excedrin.