Monday I ate something evil. It may have been the soft-yolked eggs in my morning Benedict, it may have been whipped cream on a cake that sat out on the counter for too long. It may have been something apparently innocuous, which was in fact crawling with salmonella. But it was definitely Monday, and it was definitely something evil.
I hate throwing up, and avoid it at pretty much all costs. I hate it so much, I can tell you the last time I threw up was in 1996 (I could even tell you the, uh, contents), and since then I got through a whole pregnancy without one technicolor yawn. Well, now my winning streak has come to an end.
I’ll spare you the very worst details. Let’s just say, around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, it felt like my stomach reached all the way down to my toes while engaging in some really violent reverse peristalsis.
Here’s the thing that made me want to share the story. Later Tuesday, I noticed a slight rash under my jaw. I was too miserable to investigate further, since it didn’t itch or bother me, just looked ugly. This morning I looked more closely and saw that it covered most of my face, from my eyelids, down to my throat. And I realized it wasn’t a rash. It was broken blood vessels. Yes, I barfed so hard, I burst capillaries in my eyelids!
I had no idea such a thing was possible. I find it grotesquely fascinating. And therefore I Must Share.
I had a bad California Roll at a birthday lunch once. The next night, I vomited more than I ever have in my entire life. (Including college!) This wasn’t just throwing up – this was on your knees in the bathroom, hugging the toilet, crying and praying that it will just stop.
When I woke up the next morning, I took a shower, then started to brush my teeth and almost jumped a foot back when I saw myself in the mirror. There was a huge red patch covering up most of the right side of my eyeball. I’d been throwing up so hard that I’d burst a blood vessel in my eye.
Apparently it’s not that uncommon among weightlifters and women going through labor. But it scared the hell out of me. And it took about two weeks to get back to normal.
I got a wierd 24 hour flu or something, on a day I was travelling by plane. I was actually projectile vomiting, which I never really thought was real. I made it to the bathroom on the plane, but I could have launched it into first class if I wanted.
Back in April, I spent a day in hospital with a colleague who had a slight flu, gone to the gents, vomited, and burst an artery in his nose. He was in hospital for about 4 days (where he was subject to myriad ghastly procedures to get the artery repaired), and missed 6 weeks of work after that…he’d lost something like three pints of blood – crikey!
(The really strange thing is I was wearing a purple and green [Ferguson] kilt and a vintage black with purple trim wool schoolgirl’s jacket, and whilst searching the corridor for a telephone to ring my friend’s wife, one of the student doctors came rushing up to me, and said, ‘Oh, doctor, finally, you’re here – quick!’ So…this is standard attire for LCH surgeons? )
The summer I graduated from college I stayed in Atlanta and found a job and an apartment. One fine evening after work I had a fish fillet for dinner and then went for a jog. Upon my return to my apartment I began to regurgatate. My eyes were completely red the next morning. My shrink was convinced it was because I was repressing my anger towards my parents :rolleyes: because we were not seeing “eye to eye” on many subjects. :dubious: Nah, it just was a heck of a violent vomit.
I was sharing the apartment and the restroom was off my room. My roommate had a friend over to study last one night that week. She had to use the restroom and as she walked thru my bedroom she stated that my eyes “snapped open” and scared her half to death. Of course I was sound asleep. However, I apparently sleep walk and open my eyes while I sleep on a regular basis and she was just in the room at the correct moment to witness the phenomenom and got treated to “The Scary Ugly Eyeballs™” with the red, yellow , and “green-yellow healing bruise” rainbow color effect. :eek:
Egads. That’s some pukin’ alright. The last time I wretched was on my last vacation, aboard a very expensive cruise ship, after a completely free day of drinking my weight in cheap rum on a shore excursion.
I would have loved to have been in a neighboring cabin and heard me wretching, then screaming at the top of my lungs “MORE RUM” then wretching some more.
My SIL gets the Scary Eyeballs whenever she’s sick, makes her look like a walking Public Service Announcement for domestic violence. Impressive, indeed.
Another burst-capillaries-in-the-face vomiteer checking in. My particular look was Raccoon Style[sup]TM[/sup]. Only happened to me once (alcohol induced), and I had a meet 'n greet with my new boss the next day.
Me too. Which is why I avoid the hurling like the plague. Usually i bust capillaries in both eyelids and eye sockets, so it looks like I was in a hockey fight. The worse I spew the worse it gets, the deeper and darker the brusies are. I’ve never had it go all the way down my face, though.
As a side note, I’ve found that if I close my eyes during the actual…thrusting, the result is much worse than if I leave my eyes open. Something about closing my eyes raises the pressure in my face more, I guess. Of course, then you have to actually look and watch while you barf, which isn’t the best trade off.
I was never good at barfing before my junior year at college. I got up one night (it was a Tuesday) and was sick, and then just brushed my mouth and went back to sleep. The next day I felt a little crappy so I stayed in my room and slept, read books, blew off classes, etc. After that I was fine.
Exactly one week later (at the same time!) I got up and was sick again. Except this time I proceeded to hurl like every hour on the hour until dawn. After that, I couldn’t go for more that 4 hours or so without getting sick.
Walking down the quad - bleeeeeeeah!
In my room at night - bleeeeeeeah!
During class - bleeeeeeeah!
Driving in the car - bleeeeeeeah!
I couldn’t eat much of anything - I lived a whole semester on bread, plain pasta, water. I felt like I was in the Bastille. This also introduced me to the wonderful world of endoscopy and the dreaded barium milkshake .
The never found anything wrong with me, and it doesn’t happen anymore, but it was nasty.
I had three entries in the Vomit Olympics a couple of weeks back. One toss though clearly was made by a professional as the notion an amateur could have performed such a feat is just plain laughable. No busted capilliaries resulted from the exertion but it did produce the lingering sensation at least of six-pack abs.
Nothing in my mind can beat whoever it was praying to the porcelain god in the Kingsgate Hotel, Melbourne, one night in December 2002. It sounded like they were several floors above my room, but the retching noises were echoing round the whole building :eek:
That was really unpleasant to listen to, and I’ll bet their entire head was one big blood blister afterwards.
Me, I can’t remember throwing up since I was a little kid, like 20 years ago. My friends tell me I did one New Year’s party in about 1993, but I was so drunk I don’t remember it.
As a result I have a strangely irrational fear of barfing, and threads like this don’t help. I remember one time about three years ago feeling really nauseous, but forcing myself not to chunder. Whether or not it was related I don’t know, but I was really ill with near constant nausea, acid reflux etc, for several months afterwards. I was diagnosed with gastritis, but I still didn’t puke once.
My girlfriend, on the other hand, can be up in the night throwing up and then half an hour later tucking into a big meal like nothing happened. I don’t get it.
Oh good, a puke thread! I’ve been wanting to share my own story for about a month. My husband and I got some horrible 24 hour bug a few weeks ago, on the same night. I woke up getting that “Oh God, I’m gonna puke! Ahhhh!” panicky feeling and thought that maybe gulping down an anti-nausea pill I found might help. Biiiig mistake. I barely made it to the bathroom. Meanwhile, my husband was trying to shake off his own bout of nausea and hearing me certainly didn’t help. It came on him so fast that he knew he didn’t even have time to make it to the 2nd bathroom. Instead, he took a detour, ran out onto the front porch and puked in the flowerbed. :eek:
Repeat the above (minus the flowerbed) 3 more times, add some shaking, chills and a low-grade fever and throw in some good old-fashioned “I’d rather be dead” stomach cramps, and you pretty can picture the next 24 hours of my life after that. Next day, I was completely fine.
Weirdest thing was, three days later I had a “Scary Eye” develop out of nowhere. I don’t know if it was related to the aforementioned puking or not. And, I’d also like to mention that was the first time I’d puked since 1996. I ended my non-puking streak in spectacular fashion.
I never knew you could hurl THAT hard. Ewwwww…