A Date with Mr Porcelain

I got home from work the other day and decided to stop eating out all the time and cook a meal for once. I needed some vegetables otherwise I would develop scurvy. And so I raided the freezer for some chicken, scoured the pantry for some vegetables and rice and cooked up a chicken stir-fry.

However about 1 hour later as I was sitting in my local bubble tea hang out with a friend, I began to feel rather unwell. It started with a headache and then my abdomen began to convulse and that swirling feeling of nausea overcame me. I politely excused myself and staggerred home and went to bed, thinking perhaps some sleep would solve the situation.

Oh how I was wrong!

I woke at 6am with a wrenching pain in my abdomen and had just enough time to run to the bathroom and stick my head into the toilet bowl before regurgitating the entire contents of the previous night's dinner including the tapioca balls from the aforementioned bubble tea.

I was unable to hold down and fluids and began to dehydrate. Regular pulse checking was enabled to ensure that I didn't decompensate and die all alone in my room. I called work to tell them I wouldn't be coming in whilst I couldn't sit upright.

The next 6 hours were a blur of crawling fro0m bed to bathroom as I manage to expel more fluid retrogradely then I though possible. My tummy was broke and I started rigoring and shaking in bed. As I lay there drowning in my hydrochloric acid, I was contemplating dragging my sorry self up to Emergency. What if it was appendicitis? What if I had a small bowel obstruction and was about to perforate my gut contents intraperitoneally? When WAS the last time I opend my bowels?

But my concerns about a possible ileus were soon allayed when at midday the upper GI symptoms ceased and the lower GI ones began. As regular as clockwork on every hour I was expelling those toxins and cursing the virus that caused such pain.

Thankfully such diseases are self limiting and upon waking the next day I had no trace of illness and resumed my normal activities. Unfortunately my friends weren't so lucky. Next day they were the ones actually going to Emergency. Whoops!