I have a stomach ache. Don’t leave.…I won’t be dazzling you with tales of trips to the bathroom, won’t be subjecting you to mental pictures of bowl hugging and nausea. (I want you to know I spelled nausea all by myself, no spell check.) I do however want to vent about being sick, but not THAT sick, sick enough, but not doctor sick…you get the picture. Frankly it stinks. No one feels sorry for you, no one babies you, no one offers to make you tea. And everyone expects life to go on as usual, and of course it should and of course it does….
I have been hurting since Monday when I swallowed resort pool water that quite frankly I don’t think should have been ingested considering the amount of diaperless babies I saw swimming. Some days it is really bad, sometimes not so much. On Thursday I watched my grandkids so that my daughter could go to work for a couple of hours even though it was a bad day. (hope they remember these things when it comes to picking out my nursing home) I knew I wasn’t feeling well when I didn’t have the patience to put together the Dora puzzle for the eleventh time. I knew I wasn’t feeling well when I gave them animal crackers for breakfast and more telling, I watched Barney with them…twice! As soon as my daughter arrived to collect her kids I told her I needed to lay down and basically threw her out. I nestled myself on the floor amidst the toys and puzzles, grabbed a pillow from the couch, (yes the decorative ones I won’t let my husband use) and blissfully fell asleep. For 8 minutes….til the phone rang. The phone that of course was not nestled with me on the floor. I ignored the ringing figuring that by the time I got my sick bloated stomach off the floor and found the phone it would be too late. Back to sleep. Two minutes. Cell phone ringing from inside my pocketbook which was again somewhere other than nestled with me on the floor. I got up as quickly as my twisting gut would allow and found my pocketbook and my cell phone and then it stopped ringing…of course. I checked to see who it was and it said RESTRICTED which could only mean two things. It was Verizon calling to upgrade my service for an additional $20 a month which ain’t happening ….or….it was my brother-in-law who for some reason has it set up that his cell comes up restricted. (Like someone wants to get hold of his number and breathe heavy..?!) I checked the house phone and it was a RESTRICTED number as well so I guessed it was my brother in law and called his cell. His phone played a minute version of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World before he answered. My mother in law had to go to the hospital, that he was taking her now, and could I meet him there so that he can leave. ( he isn’t too well himself) I agreed, grimaced and beeped my husband. Yes beeped. He has a beeper…welcome to 1985. I cursed the bowel gods as I waited for him to call back. Of course today, the day I need to be asleep on the floor amongst tea sets and fisher price, he is in a ‘dead’ zone. He doesn’t get the beep for over a half hour during which time I am slowly getting dressed against all better judgement, to go to the hospital. (I better be in that will!)
I picked up my daughter (not the one I previously threw out) to come with me in case I ended up on the floor myself enroute to the hospital and so that I didn’t have to look for a parking spot which is virtually impossible to find. We got to the hospital, I found a spot across the street…ACROSS THE STREET…you have no idea how huge that is. As I made my way through the ER with over 60 cubicles filled with the sick, sicker and sickest... I held my breath. I felt that in my stomach twisting condition I was way too susceptible to germs. We found my mother in law, stayed til they gave her pain medicine and admitted her. I was jealous. Just a little of that pain medicine would go a long way for my sorry little intestines.
On the way home my husband called to check in on how his mom fared in the ER, to say he was on his way home and should he go home or to the hospital. He also asked what we were having for dinner. I hung up. We ate tuna that night. On crackers. Not the breakfast animal crackers, but on low sodium Ritz crackers which all things considered was worse than had we spread it on the camels and elephants.
I found my way to the floor once again. The toys were gone but my stinky dog decided I must want to play if I laid on the floor. He nudged and scratched and dropped balls on me. My husband, reminding me through it all, that he loves me. Not my husband, the dog. I gave up on the thought of sleeping. I turned on my computer and went on to Facebook to complain about the pain in my belly. My Facebook family all wished me well, and ya know I think it worked.
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