About an hour and a half into my workday, I started getting the telltale signs that I'm about to have a bout with my usual sickness, the one that sends me to the ER after puking days on end. It shouldn't have happened. I usually get bad constipation when this happens, and I fired a formidable torpedo this morning. The first sign after that is a desire to keep stretching. Ordinarily when I stretch, it wakes me up, and I don't have to do it again. I already moved oxygen to my muscles. But a sickness stretch is something else. I keep stretching because there's something uncomfortable happening to my guts. That's when the spot shows up. It's not visible, but I can put my finger on it when it arrives. It's a spot that is nauseous at first, then starts turning into a pain point. When it starts to hurt, I know I'm fucked. So I asked my supervisor if I could leave early.
Because I do have one thing that can stop this sickness. I've discussed it previously. It's why I have the liquid vicodin (referred to as "laudanum" by my hetero lifemate, Rob Tannahill). If I catch it in time, I can put a stop to the sickness. If I've already begun to puke, it's too late. A couple of months ago, I had just such an occurrence. I woke up needing to puke immediately, and I tried to use the liquid vicodin afterwards, but it just wouldn't work by that point.
I got it in time today. I'd reached the point where I knew I was going to puke. It was almost to the point where I said, fuck it, and puked anyway. But I knew if I did that, I'd be stuck in my hotel room for days, puking my guts out and then dry-heaving when my guts have nothing more to give. Going through that at home sucks, but when you're living in a hotel?
The liquid vicodin has to be teamed with Zofran, so I took that first and then drank down a dose and a half of the, uh, laudanum. It put me down for six hours (it's fucking liquid vicodin, so I'm surprised I wasn't down for longer), but when I woke up I no longer felt sick. For the past couple of days I had a tightness in my belly that is no longer there, and I think that might be an earlier warning system if I'd been paying attention.
Today was not fun for me, but I survived without going to the ER. That's usually a good sign that I won't suffer the sickness again for a while. All the same, I had plans for the day, and those went up in smoke.
Ah well. I'd prefer life outside the ER, anyway.
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