A few years ago I spent a summer in Berlin while taking an intensive German language course. Students were hosted by volunteer families, but my roommate and I were hosted by a single divorced woman. Midway through our stay she took a vacation and left the entire apartment to the two of us. Naturally, we threw a party!
I went a tad overboard and began mixing vodka with wine… Before I knew it I was in my bedroom vomiting onto the wooden floor. In the morning I woke up, puked some more, but couldn’t bear to clean it up. So I threw a newspaper over it and went to class… Everyone was shocked to see me, but I didn’t last long – I promptly ran to the restroom and puked some more. In Germany, many of the bathroom stall walls extend all the way to the floor to create a little private room, so I curled up next to the toilet and took a nap for a few hours. Woke up, rode my bike to Tiergarten and took a nap on a park bench under the sun.
Went home to a repulsive, sour, acrid smell. My congealed vomit had dissolved the newspaper and created a white spot on the wooden floor. I regretted having not cleaned it up when I had the chance…
I had the worst stomach flu of my life last year. This one is not just a tale of vomit, so I’m going to spoiler cut it.
Went to bed one night feeling fine. Wake up at 2am, and I end up having what seemed like a mild case of diarrhea. Go back to bed, wake up 20 minutes later to repeat things. Back to bed, and then I wake up again 30 minutes later to puke. (Wait, what? Why am I puking?) Go back to bed, and wake up 30 minutes later to have some more diarrhea. This continues until about 6am, when I have the urge to puke quite violently. I puked so hard that I shat myself at the same time. After changing into clean clothes and trying to wash myself up a little, I call in to work, letting them know that I’m not going to make it into work and that I’m going to try to see the doctor today; must’ve caught whatever’s been floating around the office. Two hours later, at 8am, I’m finally able to stop puking and shitting, but I now have another hour to wait until the doctor’s office opens for business. I got the first appointment I could make, and a few hours later, I am driving myself there. Barely able to breathe and feeling dizzy, I make it to the office, thankful that it was only two miles away. I get there, get a nebulizer treatment*, get diagnosed, filled with fluids, and the prescriptions are called in for me. I pick up the prescriptions, do all the crazy stuff required (anti-nausea medication is awkward but a blessing), and collapse into bed after calling work to let them know that I’m taking a couple of days off to fight this stuff with Tamiflu and soup. A few hours later, I woke up and started a load of laundry for the clothes I had soiled and changed out of that morning.
*When I get sick enough, I tend to get asthmatic. I don’t actually have asthma, but it’s always fun to deal with as a bonus when I get really sick. :rolleyes:
My anxiety disorder chose to manifest itself in 12-14 hour puke-a-thons when I was younger. My stomach muscles would clench so hard and so long because of the anxiety that eventually, they’d just go into spasms. Pain like you don’t want to think about, combined with vomiting and occasional diarrhea. So the 12-14 hour puke-a-thons were usually followed by an entire day of bed rest to recover. But when I finished school and went to work, the puke-a-thons sometimes had to be worked around…many the nights (night shift data clerk in a data center) when I did my work with a trash basket beside me, barfing every 20-30 minutes or so.
(I seem to have outgrown that particular manifestation of the anxiety disorder about 10 years ago, thank all kind and benevolent dieties.)