It's a scary moment that I prayed I would never have to face. When a bout of stomach flu causes diarrhea and vomiting to hit at the same time and you have to make a split second decision about what end of your body goes into the toilet bowl.
Like having to choose which of your children you would save first in a fire it's a question that you think you know the answer too, but will only really discover when faced with the decision. For myself it came down to which mess did I think would be easier to clean up?
As a parent to a small child I am not unfamiliar to handling dirty diapers, but it's another thing when the mess is in your own pants. For this reason I decided vomit was the lesser of two evils and chose to remain seated while my doomsday scenario played out.
Many people might ask why not use a garbage can? I'm sure you have one in your bathroom near the toilet? Yes I do, but instead of a can I have a wicker basket and as the garbage is mostly used to hold toilet paper tubes it does not have a plastic liner. Thus using it to catch the contents of my stomach would be nigh impossible to clean and would likely smell so bad I would be forced to buy a new one.
Instead I was left with option two, which was my bathtub. Not a bad decision, especially since I had vomited so much by the time this the only thing left in my stomach was Pepto-Bismol. The problem was that while the tub was next to the toilet it wasn't so close that it could be easily reached.
Thus I found myself in the bathroom one terrible day, stretched in an awkward pose between my bathtub and toilet while my body purged from both ends. As terrible as I felt at the time I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and probably would have if not for the dry heaving.
When the stomach flu hit it caused about 8 hours of gastrointestinal distress. I lost so much fluid I dropped 10 lbs in a single day. Had I needed it I would have scheduled a colonoscopy the next day as I'm sure my system was thoroughly flushed.
It was hands down the worst stomach flu I've ever had, and set a new personal record for vomiting (7 times in six hours). But like any good comic at least I have the sense to realize the humor in it and that means more material for stage. My apologies to the squeamish in the audience.
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