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disclaimer: this post will gross you out. be forewarned.
so. lemme ask you all this:
is there any proper way to handle explosive diarrhea and tumultuous vomiting at the same time?
i'm thinking, no.
it's too hard to be clutching the sides of a toilet with any sort of skill, while trying to hold a bag in front of your face. and it hurts too much to try and coordinate just which ailment to take care of at the same time.
i wish that there was just a magical vortex that you could shift yourself into when you've reached that specific point in your sickness, where you neither care about public etiquette and how you might look to anyone around you, nor the fact that you may in all likeness be losing control over your bodily functions too far from any proper receptacle. it's a personal hell which takes a large amount of awareness and commitment of motion to remedy.
and last night, this is where i found myself.
at around one in the afternoon, i found myself itching for something to eat. you know that feeling of when you've been working on something all day long, and you all of a sudden realize that you hadn't eaten anything? yeah, that feeling crept over me.
i decided to go to the local market that sets up some days near to the hospital near my place. you can access it through this side door in the small ,which attaches my street with the main street where i can get onto public transportation. sort of a small maze at times.
usually you'll find an assortment of thai desserts, noodle stands, ready-to-eat-meals-in-a-bag, and then more towards the street, a hodge-podge of various wares including clothing, cosmetics, home appliances, and plastic containers.
as fate would have it, the market was breaking down and almost gone when i arrived, so i decided to hit up the main street to get some fruit from a fruit cart vendor, some desserts from the dessert cart vendor, and hit up a local small restaurant for some "khao mun gai tohd," which is deep-fried chicken with rice and soupstock on the side.
when i got back to my place, i found out that the chicken was not deep-fried as i had ordered. i was going to go back an exchange it, but it being early afternoon, and super sunny hot, i decided i'd just eat it and for one day not worry about it.
that was a big mistake number one.
imagine yourself later that night developing a stomach ache. i really thought nothing of it, until i left my house. i knew that something was wrong, but how wrong, i could not tell. so i decided to go to a punk show i had previously planned to take photos at, and see if i could make it through.
big mistake number two.
imagine a smoke-filled punk jubilee. loud music. moshing kids with gimungous mohawks of all the colors of the punk rainbow. a smattering of thai skinhead-emulating hooligan types screaming "OI, OI, OI!!!" it's all around you and you start to feel nauseous as all of these people start to mosh and kick and you start to feel not that super.
i had to "take a moment" too often out of that place, almost throwing up in the place a few times; almost crapping myself a few times. all of the hits i sustained to my head didn't help the headache. all of the punches to the body and the blows to my stomach didn't help the sickness go away. and all of the enveloping smells of an indoor punk show, which usually doesn't bother me at all, didn't really help me feel any less nauseous. in effect, i was on the verge of everything happening, and i opted to go home.
the taxi ride home was with one of the sort of thai bangkokian taxi-man has-to-go-fast-for-no-reason-other-that-prove-to-his-ride-that-he-can-disobey-the-law. and it was really testing my uppermost limits.
and you do feel like you get to a point when you think you can make it. call it a moment of grace even; a point where all of the ailments subside, the pains lift away, and everything for that moment seems like it's going to be okay. and then the moment passes, and you realize that if you don't get into your room, into a bathroom, now, you're going to make a mess in this taxi, and then you're fucked.
and by some small miracle, i just almost made it into my apartment before the chain reaction came to a head.
the super speed with which the taxi-man went at was constantly testing my stomachs ability to maintain. this, along with the fact that my stomach was being shaken up like a home-made brew of pop-fizzle soda from some sick backwater hillbilly moonshine club in the sticks, didn't make me feel any better.
consequently, i made it into the elevator, where i started to spew. i was really mad at myself the first time, but when the second payload came a-rising, i gave it no mind. i let go in that moment, and it was gross (later on, i would have to clean this up feeling both guilty and extremely not well, and that sucked ass).
then upon exiting the elevator, i had another spew ready to go, and out of sheer not knowing where is the most convenient place to puke if you're going to anyways, i threw up on a closed-top garbage bin, because i neither had the time nor the inclination to attempt taking it off before it all happened.
so there i am walking the short distance to my apartment, from the elevator, which at this point is just sad that i came home in that state. i entered my domicile, and ran for the bathroom with a bag in hand.
one could explain in great detail just what all happens at this point, sufficed to say, it was none too pretty.
but i figure if you've gotten to this far in my gross story, you're both wondering "why oh why did i ever read this far?" and also "could i be more grossed out, but maybe not, because it's just human, but still gross that i had read about it?"
and i apologize. i really do.
but i do feel a sense of responsibility to everyone i care about to say this: if you have plans, or even a job to do which requires you to be somewhere at a specific time, and you do not feel well...do not make the genial attempt at being "that person" who tries their darndest to help out.
take care of yourself first and foremost. don't be a hero be endangering the rest of the population. it's just not worth the test; to see whether or not you'll be able to handle it when the moment comes. stay home. stay safe. allow yourself a "sick day," because you know what?
you'll feel a lot better knowing that you made the correct decision. do the right thing people.
that is all i could ask of anyone.
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