Maybe you’re sitting there with your coffee at your desk or maybe over a cup of hot tea and your laptop, feet up on the couch. Well, if you’re faint of stomach, you may not want to read about my Exciting Weekend of the 24 Hour Stomach Flu. Fair to say, my weekend began quite nicely. I got home from work on Friday and Ash informed me that our friend, Drew, was in town and we were to meet him at Outback for dinner. Since we so rarely eat out anymore I was pretty excited about this. Needless to say, the meal was awesome. We also ran into a friend of a friend, whose son is Elliot’s age. We were sitting right next to them so Elliot and Wesley got to give each other loving and playful glances throughout our respective meals. After said meal, Ash and I put the Boy to sleep and retreated to the bedroom to watch I Am Legend.

Since I am a total wuss, I was afraid that the images of the zombie/vampire things would resurface in my dreams but it turned out to be a really good movie. They accurately (I think) portrayed how it would be to be the last surviving human as you know it. FREAKY, that is. I cried too, so it was relatively powerful and sad.

Saturday morning I awoke around 6:45 with a pain in my stomach. I ignored it for about 5 minutes but it soon pushed me into the bathroom where I huddled up to the toilet. At first, I thought maybe I was having some morning sickness, for Ash and I are trying to have kidlet #2. But this would be way too early – I haven’t even taken a test yet nor missed a period. (Way more than you wanted to know, right?) But still thinking it might be it, I drank some water and ate some crackers… and threw up again. In fact, I threw up about 7 times in 5 hours. It was AWFUL. I recall thinking that aside from labor, it was the worst I had ever felt. It was worse than the time I had food poisoning, even though I was having similar symptoms for just as long. With food poisoning, I had something to puke up. This time, my stomach tried to rid itself of every last drop of liquid in my stomach cavity, so each heave was gut-wrenchingly painful.

Ash took the Boy out to let me rest sometime around noon. The last time I puked was 12:30. I called my insurance’s Health Coaching hotline and they suggested some things to try, mainly Emetrol. And as an aside, they mentioned that “severe vomiting” is defined as throwing up 10 times in 24 hours. I was well on my way! back to Emtrol; wouldn’t you know, Ash didn’t have his phone on him so I couldn’t tell him to get some. By the time he got home (maybe 1:30?) I was so angry about it and feeling so shitty. He went to Walgreens. And then to another. Didn’t find it anywhere. Must be a run on it because, as my doctor told me when I called them, there’s a GI bug going around. Finally, we found that CVS had ONE bottle left and I put it on hold so Ash could eat and then go get it for me. I took it, slept for two hours. Which was good because the rule then was if I could keep it down for an hour, I could  begin the rehydration process. Turns out that by drinking water, I was reigniting the little cells in my stomach that caused the puking spasms. I was instructed to drink one tablespoon of Gatorade and if that stayed down for an hour, I could increase it.

By 7 PM, I had 3 tablespoons of Gatorade and a piece of toast. I felt nauseous again, took some Emetrol, and went to bed. By the next morning, my stomach was fine but I was SO weak. Though, I managed to get up and do some hardcore cleaning before crashing again. My stomach was still on edge all day but all in all, I felt fine.

Around 8 or 9 last night, Ash wasn’t feeling well and before I knew it, he was throwing up. Sigh. This thing is vicious and let’s just pray that Elliot doesn’t get it. I haven’t yet had to deal with a puking toddler and frankly, I don’t want to.  It’s a nasty bug that’s going around, I tell you.  So yes, my weekend was pretty sub-par. How about yours?

ETA: It’s National Delurking Day! So whether you’re a reader who comments or never comments, please say hi to me!