26.2.09

Aaaannnnd 200

So I guess I have been boycotting puke for a pretty long time. I will stop at no ends to avoid vomiting. Even if it means writhing around in nausea and agony, dammit I will do it. I haven't puked since...11, maybe 12? I really can't recall the last time. So, having not done so for so long, I think I have build up a rather irrational fear of puking.

Last evening, I was going to Salt Lake with some friends. For reasons I can not fathom, I thought that eating week old leftovers from Rice King was not a horrible idea. Around midnight, I found that I was rather mistaken. I guess the first clue occurred when I had to have them pull the car over, and upon stopping, flung open the door and then proceeded to retch everything I have ever eaten into the gutter.

That taken care of, we decided it would be prudent to immediately head home. I sat in the back seat, hovering over a cup in case there still happened to be any remnants of Rice King still in my churning belly. I arrived home feeling no better. I decided that puking upon my mattress was less than desirable, so I grabbed my blanket and a pillow, and drug them (and myself) back down the stairs and into the bathroom. My roommate was kind enough to fetch me a rather large bowl in which to puke, so I fell asleep curled up around it. I have no idea how many times I half awoke dry heaving, but it was more than 7.

Around 6:30 I awoke with enough coherence to realize that I probably didn't want to be sleeping upon the bathroom floor any longer. I had the chills and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. Sitting on the bathroom floor, wedged in between the toilet and the closet, more nauseous than I can ever recall feeling, teeth chattering loudly enough to wake anyone in the house, served to greatly reinforce my desire to never be a junky.

It took me about a half an hour to exit the bathroom and drag my pitiful carcass up on a couch. I would shove the puke bowl a few feet ahead of me on the floor, and then drag myself, the pillow, and blanket a couple feet in the same direction. At which point I would have to pause at wait for the nausea to dissipate to a non-puking threat level. Shove, drag, rest, repeat.

So I learned a few things. Puking...not so bad. Dry heaving, however, is pretty much as abhorrent as I mentally built up puking to be. I also found out that it is possible to survive a horrible bout of vomiting without one's mother there to provide moral support (although secretly I wished she was there rubbing my back and feeding me saltine crackers and coke.) I also learned that I am a much more stalwart and stable puker than I was in my childhood. The last puking evet that I can actually recall, I apparently did a lot of hopping and jumping about as I projected vomit into the toilet, thus causing only about half of it to actually make it in the watery bowl. I guess not having a mommy there to clean it up made me a bit more conscious of my aim.

So I pretty much spent the day in bed, eating Club multi-grain crackers (about 9) and trying to replenish some of the fluids that I had been ejecting, when I wasn't entirely too nauseous to do so. It is currently 8:45, and the sickness has, for the most part, dissipated. I guess I'm glad that my 200th post could mark the advent of such a monumental moment in my life. I knocked down my Berlin wall of puking. My Iron Curtain of vomit has been swept back. I can now be a semi normal human being, and puke somewhat more consistently without fear of the unknown.

Really, I never ever want to puke again.

3 comments:

Debbie said...

Would I sound disingenuous if I said this post warmed my heart?
I am truly sorry for your illness, but happy you wished I was there to make you feel better. I'm glad to know you're feeling better. Oh btw, I think your dental phobia will be resolved once you go back as well. Especially if you see someone you really like. Call me for a recommendation.

Joliene said...

If it makes you feel any better, I have strep throat and a sensitive everything, so of course the penicillin is making me want to vomit. Therefore, I am remaining as motionless as possible so that I can keep my medicine down so that strep doesn't turn into mono or something.

I'll trade you?

Connie. Widdison said...

hahaha.
i really enjoyed this post.
sorry i wasn't there to rub ur back.