I spent most of Friday morning filling out health insurance applications, and then in an incredible twist of irony, spent Friday afternoon coming down with a stomach bug. Caroline and I were playing outside Friday afternoon when I began to get the feeling that maybe an alien was trying to escape through my stomach, so I told her I needed to go inside and lay down.
She was all for that. “Okay, Mama. I’ll go get my doctor bag and I’ll take care of you.” And I was all for that plan. So, I went and layed down on my bed while she ran to her playroom to get her medical supplies. After about 5 minutes, which is the time it takes her to dump out every single bin in her playroom while finding what she’s looking for thus ensuring maximum mess potential, she came crawling up into my bed holding her cash register. I said, “I thought you were going to bring your doctor stuff and take care of me” and she replied, “I am, but you need to pay first.”
And with that statement, my morning came full circle.
Since I was only feeling a little queasy at this point, we went ahead with our evening plans to go eat Mexican food with Bops. Once we were in the restaurant, I knew I must be on the verge of death because I was not even tempted to eat one chip. This has never happened before in the history of my existence. I constantly crave Mexican food. I could eat it for every meal of the day and, back in my wilder college days, it was the only real cure for a hangover. I have never in my life faced a stomach trauma that couldn’t be cured with chips and salsa…until Friday.
I began to feel increasingly bad and finally, went to bed around 10:00 hoping to put myself out of my misery. I fell into a deep sleep until I woke up at 1:15 and ran to the bathroom knowing that the moment I had been dreading was upon me. False alarm. So, I spit in the toilet a few times for good measure and headed back to bed.
2:00 a.m. found me running back to the bathroom and this time there was nothing false about it. As I threw up everything I have eaten since 1985, I knew that I had never been this sick before. And it’s safe bet that I won’t be eating crispy, beef tacos for a long time since that’s what I’d had on Thursday night. We violently parted ways around 3:00 in the morning on Saturday.
It was not a pretty breakup.
I finally cleaned myself up and crawled back into bed. P never said a word, so I knew he was either in the deepest sleep known to man or playing possum in fear that I might ask him to come hold my hair for me.
I fell back asleep and woke up to Caroline crawling into bed with us at 6:20 a.m. She snuggled up next to me and said, “Oh Mama, you smell like the throw ups. Did you throw up?” I said, “Yes baby, Mama’s real sick”, and she said, “I wish you would have waked me up so I could see your throw ups.”
I live with sensitive, sympathetic people.
The good news was that P had already planned to take Caroline to the ranch for the day on Saturday, so I was able to spend the day resting and throwing up all by myself, which would have been glorious, except for the throwing up part. I did have a temporary break in my illness that allowed me to go get my haircut because I made a vow to my hair that I would take care of it in sickness and in health and I’m not about to break it. Or maybe that was the vow I made to P. Anyway, although I was a little concerned about possibly getting sick all over the floor of the salon, I was more concerned about the shape my hair was in and decided it was worth the risk.
After my haircut I was feeling better, so I drove to Sonic to treat my poor stomach to a Diet Coke poured over their miraculous, health restoring crushed ice. It was like little drops of heaven until about an hour later when it came back up with the fury of hell.
Obviously, I had overestimated my intestinal fortitude.
So, with Diet Coke literally out the window or, you know, in the toilet, I showered, put on my pajamas, crawled into bed and watched episodes of Oprah, including one with Sarah Jessica Parker’s new fashion line that included some high waisted gray jeans which almost made me throw up again, and then fell asleep for about 3 1/2 hours.
Seriously. Gray jeans. That can’t be good for anybody.
I woke up when Caroline and P walked through the door and managed to get her bathed and into bed with some help from P, and then fell right back asleep. When I finally woke up Sunday morning, I felt at least some semblance of decent again. And by Sunday evening, when I started thinking about eating something fried, I knew the worst had passed.
Thankfully, this experience didn’t require a trip to the doctor or the hospital, because I still haven’t finished filling out those insurance applications, which is an entirely different story that is causing me pain in an entirely different area.