Over the last few years, I have developed a borderline insane fear of sickness.  And when I say sickness, I mean vomit.  My vomit, other people’s vomit, the potential of my or other people’s vomit.  And the potential factor can be really debilitating.  As we all know, vomiting is an uncontrollable bodily function – it can happen at anytime.  And I have become intensely sensitive to any type of movement that could signify the split second before a vomiting occurs.  For example, you could be standing next to me, and slightly bend at the waist to check to make sure your shoe is still tied.  In my peripheral, what I see is you bending at the waist to empty the contents of your stomach onto the floor.  Driving down the street, I’ll pass someone walking on the sidewalk.  They drop something, or see a shiny penny, and bend over to pick it up.  And what I see is that person positioning themselves into that pre-hurling stance.  Every time this happens, my heart speeds up, my head pounds, I sweat – I get this intense rush of adrenaline that I would imagine matches the rush of adrenaline one gets when they realize they’re 1 second away from getting into a car accident or getting punched in the face.  Once the moment passes, and you straighten up from your bent-over-shoe-checking position and continue talking as if nothing happened (because nothing DID happen) I am overcome with such an intense feeling of relief that the thought of telling myself I’m being completely and utterly stupid doesn’t even come to pass. All I can think is, “I’m safe.”

 

The other half of this condition is the fact that despite my “fuck fight just flight” reaction to the very idea of being anywhere in the vicinity of vomit, is that I am totally obsessed with other people’s experiences with vomit.  For example:  a friend of mine and Smacky’s is a Spanish teacher, and was a chaperone on a school trip to Spain.  About 1 hour into the 6 hour flight back, she was hit with food poisoning.  Because she knows about my “situation,” she tried to tell the story AROUND the story, leaving out any details that might make me freak out.  But I stopped her.  There were certain things I had to know:

 

  1. What did you eat?  (mussels)
  2. Did other people get sick?  (yes – 3 others.  They ate mussels too.)
  3. How did you feel when you got on the plane – did you know you were getting sick?  (she felt fine, just a little bloated.)
  4. Did you throw up in the bathroom?  (no, she passed out in her seat and threw up while sleeping.)
  5. Did it last the whole flight?  (yes.  And not only that, they flew into New Jersey and had to take a bus back to Boston.)

 

There was no way I could NOT knowing these details.  I HAD to know.  As if I was trying to solve a scientific phenomenon.  Which in this case meant my pre-period bloating could be salmonella and I should never eat mussels EVER.  Especially in Spain.

 

So how did I get like this?

 

Well, it all happened over a 2 week span which I can pretty confidently say was the worst 2 weeks of my life.  And I will pause here while I regroup…