Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Stupid Ironic Disease

On Monday, I was home with what I thought was an average, low-impact, flu. Headache. Uneasy stomach. Little dizzy. Muscle cramps. Light fever. By the evening, I was pretty sure I'd be going in to work on Tuesday. I was eating dinner, telling my wife I really liked it when the baked potatoes had extra crispy skins, and enjoying an episode of Family Guy where Peter gives Stewie, Brian and Chris each a vial and declares an ipecac contest, he who pukes last wins. After which they proceed to puke all over each other and the living room, groaning for it to stop, just stop.

Which was what I was doing at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. Projectile vomiting up crispy pieces of baked potato. Coupled with a fever of around 102.5, sweats, chills, dizziness, and head ache. It was followed by passing out for several hours, and then repeating, several times, until I strained muscles in my back, neck and balls that still hurt today. Technically, I suppose I strained the muscles near my balls, in the abdomen or something, but it sure feels like someone gave me a gentle kick in the giggleberries with a boot. The puking, which took place in three separate sinks, three separate toilets, and one handy-dandy puke bucket (Eryn's), cleared up around 3:45 or so, but the fever and the rest of it held on through the night (perhaps worse) and I think I'm still a little warm to the touch. I think it was actually worse than it sounds - I spent something like 38 out of 48 hours sleeping and barely ate for two days.

I was at work today, but I canceled all my meetings and kept my body, in particular my hands - as far as possible from anything anyone else might touch. I'm hoping that was sufficient to protect the washed masses.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about the excessive puking. I know what you're describing, as I had a very similar experience (including your aforementioned testicular distress) when discovering I was allergic to E-mycin. 10+ hours of violent, make the blood vessels in your eyes rupture, puking. Just not good, any way you care to put it....

What I can't figure out though is why you didn't adopt a puke bowl much earlier in the process; I think I adopted a makeshift puke bowl (5 quart ice cream bucket) after only three pukings. At least you could have settled into one location with your steadfast receptacle by your side :)

Anonymous said...

Hm, this could leave one to wonder about correlation of not showing up for Rockband parties and being ill...nobody at our party was ill.

Seriously, though, I hope you feel better soon. Pete and I want to be back gaming with you soon!