Things you learn when home sick

[trinityvixen]

My entire family managed to give me the plague this weekend. I got to spend six hours over Sunday night-Monday morning vomiting every half an hour. Worse, I missed getting to the toilet on time for the big'un and poor feiran ended up cleaning up after me. What would I do without her? For starters, I'd be cleaning vomit out of the cats' fur still, but she also didn't hate me for spewing on the floor so much that she didn't then very kindly fetch me stuff from the grocery store. Point is, I owe her lots of hugs when I'm no longer a carrier for this.

Things I've learned from this bought with GI doom?

I hate being pathetic when sick.
I hate being pathetic, period, but when you're sick, you sorta have an excuse and the temptation is there. I lazed about on the couch for much of the day and slept. It felt decadent, especially as by then my stomach was tentatively back on good terms with itself.

Flat soda is actually really good for you.
I called my mother to ask what all to expect of this bug, and she told me that the only regular doctor we've ever had--the family pediatrician (woo, does that say how long I've gone without a GP or what?)--always recommended flat coke when we were sick. It gives you a bit of sugar energy, and the flatness takes out the stomach-troubling bubbles. Watering it down with ice that melts into it also helps, which is convenient since I couldn't exactly chug the thing when at risk of vomiting it up again.

After two hours, every episode of Family Guy looks the same.
At my mother's suggestion, sleep was the order of the day, so I put on a season's worth of Family Guy with the intention of sleeping through it. I watched one disc, got somewhere in the middle of the second, and I woke up to snippets on the menu screen that I couldn't tell weren't all from the same episode.

Involuntary muscles can hurt.
Stomach is still a bit tentative about foodstuffs, but the nausea and pain are gone. Except for the cramps in the abdomen. Turns out muscles that aren't used to being abused quite as harshly, be they voluntary or in-, can get rather cranky about it. Owie. How do you massage a muscle ache that is internal? Anyone?

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor baby! That sounds awful!

Get better soon. I hope we all can see you this weekend at least.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I will be there this weekend, but I'm not baking this year. I don't trust that I'll be able to sterilize myself against the cooking well enough to prevent passing it on. Believe me, I'd feel worse than I felt at the worst of this if I passed it on.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

I always thought the bubbles in soda were supposed to be part of the good thing about it when you're sick?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I dunno about other types of being sick, but when it's a GI thing with vomiting? You definitely don't want carbonation making you wonder whether the rising feeling in your gullet is a burp or another wave of vomit.

A lot of people get irritated by the carbonation in beverages, period, like my roommate, so I'd say there's nothing in my folk-medicine knowledge that points to the bubbles as being especially helpful.

[avram]

I'd always heard it was flat Coke that was good for tummy trouble.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you were so sick! Glad you're feeling better. And yeah, flat soda works well. I avoid Coke, though, because it's got too much acidity. Flat ginger ale and Saltines, however--lifesavers.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's funny, I was recommended coke. I settled for the ginger ale, long-time staple of sick days spent at home.

Thanks for the sympathy, which is really the reason to toss up posts like this in the first place :)

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I feel like the soda thing is one part viable medicine and four parts placebo. If your mother always gave you ginger ale with the bubbles stirred out when you were sick, then you associate that with being cared for and getting better. Whether or not tea with lemon and honey is good for my throat, it always feels better after I drink some. It was the number-one vocal coach-recommended drink for a sore throat.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Oh, and feel better, dude! You might try a heating pad / hot compress and some asprin for the sore internals.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I believe you about the placebo. I definitely feel weird drinking ginger ale outside of the times I am sick (much like I feel when I see Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, my #1 sick-day movie, outside of the illness).

And thanks for the sympathy and advice. I'll have to see about putting that into effect asap as a side-effect of cramping muscles in that region is an inability to sing/talk too much. I am too verbose/prone to fits of singing to stop for that long.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Ew. Glad you're on the mend!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Cheers! I do appreciate the sentiment. Yay for not being ill, for being ill is the mega suck.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Glad you're feeling better! Let me know where and when I'll happily bring you sweet treats.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

No treats! I managed to almost not eat for a day! I should be good before Christmas. However, I needs must get your jacket back to you.

::spots you on G-Chat:: Hmm...

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Ugh, sorry you're sick! I was playing WoW with feiran at the time of the cat incident. Poor you and poor kitty. I'm sure kitty was bewildered at what in the hell was going on.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, it broke into WoW! Maybe it was all worth it! I kid, terribly, but yeah. Thanks for the well wishes.

The kitties are, like most animals, already completely over it and don't even remember. I just hope they learn to stay out of spray range next time.

[avram]

When I've got an upset stomach, once things have gotten to the point where I'm no longer throwing up but I'm starting to feel like maybe I should eat something, I have a can of Campbell's beef broth. It's a bit of protein. (Lots of salt, though.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I had some campbell's chicken noodle. I admit it's not the heartiest soup, but that's the point with a GI problem of this nature. The less to complicate matters of digestion, the better.