I’m a power-through-being-sick kind of person. I haven’t
been the kind of sick where you can’t get out of bed and need someone to bring
you tea and saltines for as long as I can remember.
When you are a kid, you lie limp and moaning, your
parents bring you things, let you watch cartoons, and help you hobble to the
bathroom. When you are a college student, you skip class and recline in bed all
day. When you are a 32 year old teacher with 3 children, life giveth not a shit
that you are sick. Not a bit of a shit. No shits.
Here is where it all falls down, too. Because I am what I call “someone who finds the humor in everything,” and my husband calls “someone who is notoriously unsympathetic to sick people.” I learned early in our relationship that he involuntarily prefaces every retch with a noise similar to what a rancher might use to bring in the cattle. It is physically impossible to resist laughing when my husband is throwing up. My heart feels bad for him while my face is giggling its face-ass off. And then when I am sick he is really nice and takes care of me; which just makes me feel worse.
These experiences do provide opportunities for introspection, though. You can learn things about yourself, such as whether or not you can finish your sentence at the teleconference meeting you are facilitating and hit the mute button before you throw up. I totally can.
Here are some observations I have made through the haze of
nausea:
- Throwing up into a trash bin full of dirty diapers is a sensory experience that I cannot describe.
- Peanut butter smells gross.
- Even if they have just WITNESSED YOU HURLING WITH THEIR BEADY LITTLE EYES, small children will still jump on your stomach immediately afterward. They don’t care. And you aren't even allowed to throw them out into the snow. There are laws against it. Imagine you told a full-grown adult co-worker that you had just thrown up in the restroom and that co-worker belted you in the gut. You would murder him or her, am I right? Anyway.
- Throwing up is like crossing a rope bridge. Don’t look down. Now is not the time to reminisce about what you have eaten for the past ten hours. Not. The. Time.
That's all I have for now. I know this one is short; but I'm a sickie. Give a girl a break.
