Pronunciation: "in-(")flü-'en-z& Function: noun Etymology: Italian, literally, influence, from Medieval Latin influentia; from the belief that epidemics were due to the influence of the stars 1 : an acute highly contagious disease caused by any of several single-stranded RNA viruses (family Orthomyxoviridae) and characterized by sudden onset, fever, prostration, severe aches and pains, and progressive inflammation of the respiratory mucous membrane; broadly : a human respiratory infection of undetermined cause
*Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online
I haven't had the flu in years, but I've got it twice in less than a month. There goes my lucky streak!
Anyway, I just puked my guts up again! That’s how I spent Christmas morning too.
Zach got sick about 4-5 days before Christmas and it hit me on Christmas morning. Some present! I did manage to eat a little that day … even though I was scared of an encore performance.
Once again, a few days ago (Thursday night), Zach came home from a friend’s (Kevin's) and was throwing up. He slept all night and woke up Friday feeling fine and even though he didn’t go to school, he had a friend (Josh) spend the night. He had two friends (both Josh and Kevin) spend Saturday night!
Well, I got home late this morning (Sunday morning) and went to sleep, but kept waking up because I felt sick and had to go to the bathroom extremely often … if you know what I mean. I lay around and slept on and off all day hoping to eventually wake up feeling better … but NO!
Even though I’ve barely eaten a thing in the last two days, I think I’ve thrown up more than I ever have before. I felt like I was in the “Exorcist”. It just kept coming!
Then of course, no incident of vomiting is truly complete until you have the requisite dry heaves to bring it to its cruel and bitter (but much anticipated) end. I think I ruptured my throat!
Mom just got here right after it happened, when I was brushing my teeth. I don’t know how people can throw up and not brush their teeth.
Anyway, Mom had brought me some Canada Dry Ginger Ale and some Edy’s Whole Fruit Strawberry Bars. She asked me if I wanted anything and I had her fix me a cup of Earl Grey tea.
That’s what I’m drinking right now … err … sipping on.
Mom’s been staying here through the week because Dan has to work third shift for three months.
I miss living in Ashland. I miss my Internet connection! It started out as like 1.5 MB/sec but I could never get more than 800 KB/sec at that time when I’d do an Internet Speed Test.
Then they doubled the bandwidth to 3 MB/sec for free and I’d usually get about 4 MB/sec on the test.
What I realized though is that it didn’t matter because most servers I was accessing topped out at around 600 KB/sec.
There was this one time I downloaded an expensive program and that company must have had a lot of bandwidth and blazing speed because the program was 20 MB in size and took between 4-5 seconds to download. I was wishing everything was that fast!
It’s not just the Internet connection I miss though, I’ve spent most of the last half of my life there. A lot has happened during that time.
It just felt like home.
Plus, for the last year, I’ve practically had the place to myself and could have anyone over at any time or do whatever I wanted without having to worry about waking anyone. Not that I didn’t do those things when other’s were living there as well, it’s just then I did them without inhibition I guess.
Okay, this is where I stopped writing my entry and went to lay down for a few minutes because I started feeling really sick again. Instead, I fell asleep for several hours.
I was just lying down for "a few minutes" and Zach came in and cuddled up next to me. He had been watching one of my “Ghost Stories”* DVDs and I’m sure he was scared. I eventually fell asleep.
I woke up around 4 a.m. feeling REALLY sick again. I was burning up, but freezing at the same time. I lay there a while trying to get the strength to go to the bathroom yet again.
Every time I tried getting out of bed, even though he was a good half-foot from me and I was being very quite, Zach would sit bolt upright and ask, “What are you doing?” I’d just lie back down.
The first time he called me Josh; I guess he thought I was his friend that spent all weekend.
After the fourth try, I finally told him I had to go to the bathroom, so he got up and went into the living room and lay down on the sofa.
After going to the bathroom, I grabbed my puke bucket because I thought for sure even though the only thing that could be in my stomach was the tea I had drank … I really thought I was going to throw up again.
I lay down once more and tossed and turned and writhed in agony because I couldn’t get comfy. I was so hot, but so freakin’ cold at the same time and extremely achy! I managed to take my temperature when I was up and it was 102° F.
Once again I managed to fall back asleep, but woke up just a little bit ago (6:30 a.m.) because Mom was leaving and was checking on me before she left. I got up and walked to the door with her and grabbed me a Strawberry bar (which I’m eating right now) and a can of Ginger Ale.
I pray they stay down! I know I need something in me because I’ve lost so much fluid that I am so freakin’ weak! It takes everything in me just to walk through the house and I get so dizzy I feel like I could collapse.
I’m thinking of making a doctor’s appointment today to at least have my ribs checked out. It’s been three weeks since I thought I could have broke a few and they’re not any better. They started to feel somewhat better, but apparently I did some kind of damage to them while I was vomiting.
I’m a violent vomiter (is that even a word?)! I envy people who can throw up like it’s nothing. You can probably hear me from a mile away. I swear, every muscle in my body from my toes to my head strain so hard that I think they’re going to pop through my skin.
Actually, it kind of feels like my insides are trying to get out!
Anyway, I can hardly bare it when I accidentally lay on the side my ribs are hurting. It feels really sore and sometimes it takes my breath, like someone just stuck a knife into my lung.
I would have gone to the doctor earlier, but I’m sure there’s nothing they can do for it except put a wrap around my torso.
-sigh-
I HATE going to the doctor, but I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since they’ve been injured.
Anyway, I’m going to end here for now. I came online as a distraction earlier, but it didn’t work and now I’m starting to feel sick again.
I guess eating that Strawberry bar wasn’t a good idea after all.
-crossing my fingers-
* I bought my copy of "Ghost Stories" at Best Buy for like $15.88 or something. I was surprised to see them on Buy.com for over $42.00!
