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2004-09-19 - 7:44 p.m.
I don't know how to stop vomiting since I've been working in all this
Tuesday felt like a bad day through and through for pretty much every moment that I was out of the house. For one, my gas tank was on E and I only had 10 dollars to my name until my next paycheck came through a day or two later. And since I was running a little late for work, I didn’t bother stop for gas, and was feeling uneasy that I’d even be able to get it started later. When I got out of my car, I realized that I forgot to put up my temporary parking permit, which I’ve been using lately because I haven’t been able to afford a yearly one yet. But I wasn’t sure, and decided to just go ahead on my way to work instead of taking a minute to check and put it up. When I go into work on campus, I pretty much never know how much work I’m going to have to do. Sometimes there’s barely anything and I spend most of my shift sitting at the computer in the office. Sometimes I’m working from the minute I get there until the minute I leave. This was one of those days. The first few weeks of the semester are always the worst, and every fall, we have this big set up in the middle of a field with a bunch of rented wooden tables that are way heavier and harder to work with than our regular tables. I remember last year or the year before, we had 5 or 6 of the student workers on hand for the set up, but this time it was just me and the 2 old men, and it took all morning and it sucked. Now, work is work, and I don’t mind putting in some extra sweat now and then. And over the summer, it didn’t matter if I got grimy at work, because I usually went straight home and showered. But during the school year, I generally go to class after work, and I try to wear decent clothes. So that day I happened to wear my new-ish shoes, and some khakis and a nice shirt. So standing in a field all morning got my shoes, which I’ve had for months but still were pretty white and clean-looking, all covered in dirt and stained brown, and my pants got pretty dirty too. So that sucked. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my work shift ends at noon and I start class at 12:30. I worked right up until the last minute of my shift, and since I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and was about to sit in class for 3 hours, I had to grab something to eat. And since I knew the professor in my next class doesn’t tolerate lateness or eating in class, I had to get something to eat and get it fast. So I got some waffle fries from Chik-Fil-A and ate them as fast as I could. And then I hiked halfway across campus to get to class on time. So I got to the classroom and sat down at my desk for a couple minutes waiting for the professor to show up, and I started to feel really queasy, and realized that the quick lunch and walking immediately afterward had really done a number on my stomach. So I left the room and just barely got to the toilet down the hall before losing my lunch. I was leaned over the toilet for at least 5 minutes just heaving, I felt absolutely horrible. I knew it was just an upset stomach and that I wasn’t really sick-sick, but I decided I’d just had enough for the day and I was going home. There was going to be a quiz in class that I wasn’t ready for anyway. So I went back into the classroom, and asked to be excused to take the quiz on Thursday, and told the professor that I had just gotten sick. When I said that, he kind of flinched and stepped away, which kind of pissed me off. It wasn’t like I was going to projectile vomit on him right there. It made an awkward an embarrassing situation even worse. So I went and got my books and left. When I got back to my car, just as I had worried, I hadn’t put up a parking permit, and there was a $75 parking ticket waiting for me. It was just a perfect ending to a perfect day. I went home and pretty much laid in bed watching TV for a couple hours, and took a nap. After I got back up, I was feeling a little better, and pretty hungry, since I still hadn’t really eaten and digested anything all day. So I decided to heat up some pasta I made the other night for dinner. But shortly afterward, I ended up throwing that up too. A few hours later, I tried for something smaller, a couple slices of toast, but that came back up too. Landon went to the store and picked up some pepto (or rather, a generic brand substitute with the fantastic name Pink Bismuth), which was nice of him, but I almost immediately spit that back up too. Later that night, I ended up just spitting up bile a couple times, just tons of mucus. Since I didn’t have work til noon the next day, I was able to sleep in and take some time to decide whether I needed another day off. After throwing up almost immediately after waking up, I decided not to go to work or class and called my boss and e-mailed my professor. I pretty much didn’t leave the apartment the whole day, mostly laying in bed and watching TV. I didn’t really feel that bad, apart from feeling a little weak from hunger because I couldn’t eat anything. The worst part about it was that I couldn’t eat, because if there’s one thing I like to do when I’m at home and trying to relax, I eat. I’m a well fed dude. So that was frustrating. And since I wasn’t able to buy any of my textbooks until later that week, I couldn’t even really do my homework, and I wasn’t feeling up to anything else productive like cleaning my room. So it was really just a wasted day watching TV. That night I talked to J.G. online for a while and got her all worried about me, and I felt bad about that. But talking it out with her helped me figure out that at least part of my problem was dehydration. I had been drinking water a little since I got sick, but not a lot, just because I felt paranoid that anything I ingested would come back up. But after that point, I started drinking a lot of water, and I think that was when things started to turn around. The next day, I felt a bit better, and decided to go to my classes. But I still called out of work again, mainly because I was still weak from not eating anything and I didn’t want to push it having to do any manual labor. As it turned out, I barely had the strength to walk to and from class. I felt like if I ate something that day I’d have a good chance of keeping it down, but I didn’t want to eat and risk throwing it back up before or during class, so I held off until after I got out of class. Immediately afterward, I went to the grocery store and got some foodies, mostly fruit and vegetables and stuff that wouldn’t be too rough on my digestive system. At first I had a banana and some raisins, and my stomach felt a little weird, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I was gonna be sick again, or if it was just because it was the first thing I had been able to digest in almost 3 days. After a couple hours, I felt like I was finally able to eat again, and tried to start small, because if I was wrong, I’d have a lot to throw up if I wasn’t careful. But I was really hungry, so I just kinda kept eating and eating. In the course of a few hours I went through a whole tray of pastry and a whole bag of salad and I think a couple other things. For a couple days I still felt perpetually malnourished and a little hungry, but I knew I was pretty much good again. The next day, I decided not to go to work on-campus again, even though I pretty much could. I woke up on time and everything, but I was just tired as hell, and I had to work at the sub shop til late that night. So I figured, since they already knew I was sick, I’d just milk it and take another day off. I was kind of just sick of that place after the hard day on Tuesday anyway. -al2
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