What the OP describes sounds just as good as coming right away, to me.
The main reason I want someone to check in is just that I find the feeling right before and right after puking to be one of the worst things. It just feels so awful that the contrast of someone caring is really nice.
That said, I haven’t had that problem in years, maybe even a decade now. When I get sick to my stomach, nothing comes out of my mouth.
Neither wife nor I has ralphed many times since we’ve been together. She’s commented on how loud I hurl. Our oldest son (17) used to puke until dehydrated. My wife even had to take him to the hospital once. He hasn’t done it in ages now. He’s about to go off to college, where realistically it will probably happen at some point. The one time I got sick when we had company, wife ignored me. I’ve often said that if I had a heart attack while she was visiting friends she wouldn’t notice me gasping and grabbing my chest. When I hit the floor she’d say “why didn’t you say something?” Otherwise she’d call 911. When I had appendicitis, I told her my stomach felt bloated. Her reply? “It sounds like you got your period.” It did feel kinda like the way women in my life hae described menstrual
cramps.
“The thing was…it wasn’t his vomit…”
You never heard it before? I first heard it when I was a teenager, ca. 1980.
I am so glad I wasn’t eating when I read that.
Yeah, when I hear about someone dying in a pool of their own vomit, I’m always impressed by the dedication it musta taken to fill the pool.
If you’re talking about “This Is Spinal Tap”, the first time I saw that, I was in a movie theater with a couple hundred other people who also didn’t know that scene was in the movie! 
I never heard an audience howl that loudly before or after, with one exception: the Kathy Bates nude scene in “About Schmidt”, which I saw on opening weekend with a theater full of people who weren’t expecting that either. 
As for emetophobia, I’ve had quite a few women tell me that pregnancy cured them of that. 
After about the 3rd or 4th time, they accepted it as something they would have to put up with in order to have that baby.
It would never occur to me to alert other members of the household or draw attention in any way to myself while retching. My wife, on the other hand, seems to think I should take a keen interest when the shoe is on the other foot. Something about moral support I guess. I feel I do an adequate job of both feigning interest and masking disgust.
I’m immediately there for her. I have learned over the years to simply ask “Do you need me?” If I don’t hear a yes, I simply make sure that I have a glass of water, a damp face towel and the mouthwash ready when she’s done.
This is the 2nd 2003 zombie I’ve seen today that’s been resurrected by a newbie. Odd…
Anyway, I would comfort him after I get my juji fruits first
I’m an emetophobe, so the spouse knows that in general if he’s puking, I’m turning up the TV and trying to ignore it. He’s got a loud voice–if he needs help, he’ll yell. He never has, and he’s not the type who needs somebody standing over him.
Me, I haven’t puked since 1996 so it hasn’t come up (heh). But if it did, I don’t expect him to help me, either. Puking is something best done in solitude.
Vomiting, so long as one is not a baby or someone unconscious, is not a life threatening freaking thing. I’d *like *to think that if my spidey sense kicked in and told me something really urgent was afoot, I’d jump into savior mode, otherwise, someone throwing up is not something that requires my (or anyone’s assistance). It’s a bummer and we’ve all been there, but from me it get’s a big " sorry about that; deal with it and leave me out of it".
Now, if I hear one of the dogs beginning to retch, I drop everything and let them outside.
I was going to say this. In any case, if you know someone in your vicinity is suffering like this I should think you’d be in attendance immediately.
Unless, of course, you know that they do not want anyone around in situations like this.
Right?
I guess so. I can’t imagine not running to my loved one if I heard them puke. It helps, of course, that we almost never puke, and when we do, it pretty much means we’re quite sick. But I can’t imagine hearing him puke and just going “Oh well…he’ll be fine.”
It’s just us and him in the world. 99.9% of the time that puking is going to be nothing. What if it’s not, though? What if it’s the one time he really needs help, and I just assumed that he was fine?
Hell, if one of us in the bathroom too long we start to be concerned and will ask “Are you all right?” Again, if something happens, there is no one else to help us. We only have each other.
“Hmmm… the wretch is Strong with this one…”
“I find your lack of Dramamine disturbing.”
“I am purging the meal, pray I do not purge it any further…”
“When I left you I was but the hurler. Now I am the blaster.”
“Was it dinner?”
“I hope not for your sake, the porcelain god is not as forgiving as I am…”
“You underestimate the power of the Barf Side…”
I don’t run [heh] to the bathroom to puke, I can’t kneel and get up thanks to a crapped out body, I keep a 1 gallon stock pot around that is wonderful for vomiting into. Great capacity, sterilizable, and I don’t have to worry about missing one of those cute tiny emesis basins [last time I was vomiting in pre-op, I filled 4 emesis basins and still vomited on myself and the floor.] It also makes a great bedroom trash can. mrAru doesn’t feel the need to be coddled when ill either.