Armitage Shanks!!

I apologise, I pretty much fell off the grid yesterday when I’d hoped to blog on alternate days forever more (ha ha). But I have a very good excuse! I’d foolishly contracted the d&v bug my daughter bought home from school at the weekend and had spent the better part of Monday night/Tuesday morning curled up in a foetal position on the hallway floor (groaning and weeping quietly). You’re going to think I have an odd obsession about toilets but I’m afraid I have no choice but to write about…well, being sick.

I know, I know – vomiting is something we all have to do at one time or another. Having said that, I once met a man who said he had never thrown up in his entire life, he insisted he had experienced nausea at times, but had never voided the contents of his stomach. I used to be so insanely jealous of that, but I sagely remind myself (in my medical capacity) that the body knows what it’s doing and has to rid itself of unwanted bodily matter sometimes.

I threw up for ten straight hours on Monday night (approx once an hour). In the morning, as I hobbled over to the sink to scour my hands clean for the thousandth time, my husband said, “it’s a shame, because you really hate being sick.”. I thought at first this was an odd thing to say because, well, who doesn’t? But on reflection, he was right really. There is nobody who hates being sick more so than me. I think the reason for that lies in the fact that I tend to do it so much more spectacularly than other people.

I had a friend at nursing college once, and living cheek-by-jowl in those small, cube-like rooms, there isn’t much one can keep a secret from others. Anyway, she had the strangest way of vomiting – it was much akin to a ‘discrete cough’ and then that was pretty much the end of it. Whereas me, well I really go for it. I mean, I don’t think there is another human being out there who could take me on as far as ‘audibility’ and effort are concerned. And what’s more, as was the case two nights ago, I’m up-chucking for HOURS! My daughter only threw up three times and that was more or less the end of her bout of sickness. But mine endured forever! After consistently vomiting hourly, on the hour from 1 am to 11 am the next morning – when there was nothing left to give but hideously bitter-tasting bile, I pretty much had decided I wanted to die right about then. I considered whimpering, ‘help me! I’m dying!’ up the staircase to my sleeping family but I doubt anybody would have troubled to come down to ascertain if this were true.

Still, it passed; I’ve lived to fight another day! After ringing-in sick, I spent my entire Tuesday on the sofa – drifting in and out of sleep, staring longingly at a glass of water I was too afraid to drink, having to stagger hourly to the loo as the ‘d’ bit of the d&v had decided to kick in then. So you see, writing a blog was next to impossible. I’ve only just managed to take a shower an hour ago as I wasn’t strong enough to do so before. Raising your arms above your head for more than a minute to wash your hair is strangely hard, isn’t it? But on the plus side, the scales tell me I’ve lost three kilos practically overnight (and I know that’s mostly fluid which I am going to be replacing today, but three kilos, that’s over half a stone! Don’t take that victory away from me! I promise you, I’ve earned it!).

Anyway, I’d better scoot off – there’s still a full morning of crap TV to watch. It will mainly consist of people thinking about buying a new house in the country but then deciding against it, or other people going to sell their ‘antiques’ at auction but getting less money than they expected because they ought to have used eBay. Toodles!