Blechhh

My turn. Mary had it, Adriene had it, Jen (sort of) had it, Holly had it. Jen's relatives got it, all at once. Now I had it: viral gastroenteritis aka Stomach Flu. It's 'going around' from what I hear, and the emergency rooms have lines out the door. I got it worse than anyone in the family, naturally.

For ten hours I lost fluids out both ends, even had a spectacularly runny nose. I started barfing up mostly nothing (gawd, I hate the dry heaves), but later considerable quantities of watery liquid mixed with some bits of rotting lettuce (undoubtedly the salad eaten the day before I got sick). Seven hours into the ordeal I realized that I was probably getting severely dehydrated and so decided to miss a lithium and try to get my electrolytes and water levels back in balance before the following dose. I choked down what Gatorade I could, even though most of it came right back up, until I finally threw up something that looked like a mass of seaweed and then didn't vomit anymore. Between then and the next dose I managed to finish four small bottles of Gatorade and two afterwards. Add in a few odd glasses of fruit juice and lemon-lime soda, and even with all the liquids I pumped down I've lost almost 10 pounds.

I also spit up something that looked like a miniature marshmallow: it was pure white, square, about a half inch across. I wonder if it was a Pristiq? It's controlled-release, but I don't know the mechanism for the control. Maybe it puffs up like that.

Now my ribs and diaphragm and back muscles ache - you know, all the vomit muscles - and I can't cough. I can't roll over in bed, either - I have to slide out, stand up, and reenter. I just had a bowl of rice cereal, thinking it would be fairly gentle on my poor guts, but that was a mistake.

I don't know if the cycling has continued, since I just woke from 10 hours almost continuous sleep. I do know that 20 minutes after the last daily dose of Pristiq I got nervous, agitated, and "dance-y". That lasted about 15-20 minutes. If the timetable holds, I should be feeling something in two to three hours. We'll see.