No. And you can't make me. This is still America.
Moving on...
Thursday night Mike and I made some barbecue chicken pizza (a food I have sadly now eaten for the last time.) I was sleepy and a little cranky, but I'm a Millennial--we're all sleepy and cranky all the time. Even when we're sleeping. So that didn't phase me. I got ready to leave riiiight about the time the snow started falling--big, sudsy, floppy flakes that stuck to the window. I drove through Shockoe ShotEm looking for a parking space that would best suit my needs; I drove up Rapist Row, Down Dismemberment Drive, Rounded the corner of DrugMurderStreet (I live in kind of a bad area) and finally found a nice little place that was unlikely to be the target of a B&E (that's Breaking and Entering, for those of you who don't speak Law Enforcement.) I put the car in park. Then...I felt it.
Anyone ever been to see the Old Faithful geyser? You know that part where it erupts and it's suddenly EVERYWHERE? OK picture that...turn it 90 degrees (so that's horizontal, Communications majors)--that was me, all over the dashboard of my car. A rushing waterfall of pizza vomit, with topnotes of stomach acid and a chocolate chip cookie. I sat there for a second, my arms slightly out to my side, a river of stomach contents puddling in my lap and all over the console of the car. It was on the windshield. It was on the ceiling. I'm confident that if I'd opened the moon roof, it would have come out the top. I did the rational thing and burst into tears and called Mike.
This, but with puke.
"OH GOD, IT'S EVERYWHERE"
"Hello...?"
"MIKE I JUST THREW UP EVERYWHERE IN MY CAR MIKE I THREW UP IN MY CARRRR."
"Elyse is that you?"
"MY CDS ARE COVERED IN PIZZAAAAAA"
"Hon, you're going to have to stop screaming, I can't understand you."
"WAAAAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAA"
"OK well do you need me to come over?"
"I MADE A PUKE GEYSER AND IT'S IN MY SOCKS."
It went on like that for about 10 minutes while I described to him exactly where the vomit was, the texture, etc. but then I had to finally depart the vomitmobile (I cleaned everything up with the precision of a crime scene investigator using disinfectant Windex, Clorox wipes, and an entire roll of paper towels...which I do keep in my car at all times because that's normal.) I felt fine for the first 30 seconds of the walk to my door, then raced inside, threw my keys on the floor, slid into the bathroom like a fat batter trying to make it to third base, and started round 1 of a little game I came to call "Vomit Bullseye." It's like that controversial N.R.A. shooting game, only with puke instead of bullets. Much like what I would expect from my score of the N.R.A. game, my accuracy for Vomit Bullseye put me strongly in the "Shaky-Hand" category, though before the virus was over I like to think I upped my score to "Sharp-Shooter." I knew not at the time, but I would commence to throw up for the next 15 hours. I was a desperate woman. I went to Facebook. HELP ME, FACEBOOK, I pleaded. "You have the flu, you dumbass. Shoulda gotten the vaccine. Feel better!" That's what Facebook gave me. I lay in bed.
I had the fever. I had the puking. I had the delirious conversations in my head and the paranoia that I was dying. But what differentiated the whole experience from a Dave Mathews Band concert was my complete inability to fall asleep.
I wanted to sleep SO. BADLY. Oh, and of all the times in the world for the gottdamn cable to malfunction? It was just channel after channel of snow (the result, ironically, of the snow outside. Thanks for absolutely nothing, Dish Network.) Mike offered to drive over and stay with me. I declined, looking at my vomit-sweat dreadlocked hair. There was nothing about to happen that night that I wanted him to be any part of. I put in a DVD from Season 1 of Entourage (Drama and Turtle had flip-phones) and watched every episode. Twice. I moaned. I had a dream that I was in the Lizzie McGuire Movie and I couldn't convince Lizzie to just stay with her class and take the tour of Rome with Gordo. I cried. I cried for Lizzie. I cried for Gordo. I cried because my arm couldn't reach my cup of ice on my bedside table.
Around 4am I decided to get smart about this whole thing and got a cleaning bucket out from under my sink to act as my liaison between my bed and the toilet. Everything got kind of hazy after that. I fantasized about drinking water. I did more than fantasize...I drank. I drank, KNOWING what would happen 5 minutes later. I was totally living in the moment. Morning came and I sent an incoherent text to my roommate (one door down) basically telling her I would give her all the money I had in my bank account if she would get me a Coke from the drink machine in the lobby (I know it's not the right thing to drink when you're sick. But when I'm sick I want Coke. That's all.) She texted me back, more than happy to do that without the remuneration (or she knew that at any given moment I have like, thirty bucks to my name.) Five minutes later I started to wonder if I'd really sent the text, or if I'd just imagined it. When my glorious Coke showed up a few minutes later, I swear to absolutely everything it was the best drink I've ever had. For 5 minutes. Then it became the best drink I'd ever leased to my stomach.
Fast-forward a few hours...I decided to go to the most hated place in all the world. A place I only go to under extreme duress. The ULTIMATE torture-chamber for people who hate being told what to do. I went to the doctor. Now, I KNEW there was really nothing anyone was going to be able to do for me but I wanted to take this opportunity to yell at a doctor because I hate them all. I sat in the waiting r--well, I didn't sit, I layed bassinet-style across one of the chairs. I fanned myself with a magazine. I panted. I rocked back and forth. I pressed my face into my hands. I remembered I wasn't wearing a bra at all and my tee shirt was inside-out.
Once my name was called, a nurse with all the urgency of someone browsing through Crate&Barrel walked me back, blood-pressured me, took my temperature, and told me to walk to a different room in the back of the office. "What the hell do I look like, a triathlete?"
What, sick people can't be sarcastic jerks? She was laughing on the inside.
The table-thingy was nice and cool so I put my face on it and positioned my body against the wall because that felt cool too. The doctor came in, assessed my condition (at this point I looked like a door-stop wedged up against the wall, face-down) and told me I had a flu-gastroenteritis combo.
"OK so gimme Theraflu."
"I can prescribe you Tamiflu-"
"Gimme the juice."
"Take Tylenol for the fever, and drink Gatorade to replace your fluids."
"That's what WebMD said...It also said I have 'Flu-Cancer' which isn't even a thing! HA-HA."
"Come back in if you're not better in 2 days."
I don't remember much about the rest of the day after I got home, but I know M took care of my empty shell of a body and soul for the next 3 days. That sounds dreamy in theory but in practice I just felt gross and helpless. I had one sock on. I still had vomit chunks in my hair. Manti Te'o imaginary girlfriend story was on loop on every news station and in my delirium I started getting paranoid that maybe MY boyfriend wasn't real (as I layed on his couch.) At one point I think I asked out loud "Would you tell me if you weren't real?"
Saturday morning I thought mac and cheese sounded amazing, so he went to the store to get some ASAP.
"Hahaha it's like you're pregnant, hahahaha"
"Hey babe, that's about as funny as butthole-cancer"
"...sorry, I was just saying..."
"I'm going to go lick your toothbrush."
I eventually came around and started eating normal food again. I've consumed 4 beef n cheddars this week in an attempt to make up for the 5 lbs lost during fiesta de vomit. I'm not quiiiiite back to normal, but I'm getting there.
So in conclusion, wash your hands, don't lick doorknobs, and wear a hat when you go outside. And if you do happen to get sick, sarcasm may not be the BEST medicine but it may make you feel a little better.
