welcome to my mind ...

I woke up yesterday morning with an upset stomach. No big deal; it's not the first time I've woken up with an upset stomach. It usually goes away after an hour or so. Yesterday, however, was a different story. After a couple hours, I suddenly felt much worse. I was trying so hard not to puke, but to no avail. I expelled everything in my stomach, which at that time of the day wasn't much.

I went back to my desk and felt so much better. I had a banana, some saltine crackers and a small Gatorade. About an hour later, I started feeling the same as I had when I'd woken up. I decided to go home for lunch and lay down for half an hour, see if maybe that would help. I got home, and threw up again. This time it was only a little bit of the Gatorade. I laid down for about 25 minutes, but at this point I was freezing. It was a little on the chilly side outside, but nothing that would make me this cold.

I got back to work and was still freezing. At this point, I was out of it enough that my coworkers could visibly see it. Barely 30 minutes later, I excuse myself to use the bathroom and pretty much everything that I'd put in to my system came back up. I walked back to the office, tears still glistening in my eyes, pale as a ghost, and my coworker tells me to ask my supervisor if I can go home. I walk down to her office, where two of my other coworkers were having a meeting, interrupt and ask if I can go home. I was shaking at this point, probably from throwing up so many times in so many hours, and I was told that going home was probably a smart idea.

I felt really bad about leaving. Not only am I taking a 2 hour cut in pay {which really isn't that much}, but I'm never this sick. I had to bail on my friend, who'd already paid for my movie ticket. I felt even worse about that than I did leaving work. I was hoping that I might feel better enough to meet up with them anyway, but that wasn't the case. I got home and even with long pants, fuzzy socks, a t-shirt and three blankets, I was still freezing. I passed out almost right after laying down and didn't wake for a solid 3 hours. After that, I drank water in little bits and slowly, so as not to agitate my system. I didn't dare try any kind of food until I'd not had any stomach pain for a while.

Around 8:30, I was finally able to get out from under the covers without shivering and got dressed so that I could go get some soup. I got two cans, and a thing of Gatorade {for today} and made my way back home. The fever had apparently passed because it didn't take me long to warm back up. I was even able to take the socks off because I was getting too warm. I ate about half a can of chicken and rice soup. A couple hours later, I was back in bed and fell asleep pretty damn quickly.

Today, I'm sore. My rib cage hurts from hurling. However, the nausea is gone. Despite the fact that I'm feeling significantly better, I am going to be taking it easy today. I've already had quite a bit of water; I'm slowing working through a banana now. I feel really bad about having left work yesterday and bailing on my friend. I know that I was sick, but I would have felt less bad if the illness had carried over to today. 24 hour stomach bugs are the worst because you feel fine one minute, then really shitty for a day, then the next day it's like nothing had happened.

Hopefully everyone will forgive me. And that I'm not sick again for a long, long time.