Bleah....

[kengr]

You may remember my post last week about getting a touch of the flu or some such?

Well, it turns out I wasn't actually over it.

My sleep schedule has been pretty wonky anyway so I didn't recognize the "wanting to sleep all the time" as still recovering. So I went to a doctors appointment Tuesday. This involved (for ease of scheduling) walking 2/3rds of a mile to the bus stop that'll gt me there with no transfers.

I got home (after another such walk) and a brief stop at the store to break a $5 so I'd have more $1 for buss fare, since I had another appointment Wed (eye exam).

Well, after eating much of the bag of the cheap Cheetos clone I'd bought as a reward, I started feeling not so hot.


Started with several trips to the bathroom where the lower end of my digestive tract got *thoroughly* cleaned out. That wasn't too bad.

I checked my temp with the ear thermoter. 99.6 on one side, 100.1 on the other. Not good.

Then the nausea cut in. That was when I dug out the ginger ale. And a straw, since if I'm wearing my CPAP mask, I can't drink out of cans or cups.

Even the ginger ale was hard to deal with but I knew I needed the fluids (and water was just making my stomach complain more.

Finally after a few hours, I had to use the wastebasket I'd placed next to the bed. Puking is bad. Puking on an empty stomach is worse. Also didn't help that the traces of the cheetos clone were the "red hot" sort and the dye lingered making it very pink/red. Just enough for a flash of "Oh hell" before I saw the bits of undigested cheeto and went. "Oh., it's not blood, just [censored] dye."

I checked my temp every once in a while when I was reasonable functional. I think it peaked around 101.9

Somewhere in there I'd found that I could also tolerate the diet grapefruit soda, though the ginger ale was still easiest.

Silly me. I decided to try some water. Which almost immediately sent me back to the wastebasket. Yech.


One period of consciousness was about 7:30. I made myself stay awake until a bit after 8 when I called to cancel the eye exam scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, the number for when they'd called to remind me (while I was at the Wed appointment! :-) was still in my phone and worked. So that's rescheduled for Jan 6.

Oh yes, one of the signs that I consider my illness to be somewhat serious? I start hauling the cell phone with me even to the bathroom. I've never needed it that badly, but I'd rather not need it and not have it.

I'm glad I'd started "stocking up" on the canned diet ginger ale a few months back after a couple of bouts of queasy stomach. Also glad for the cans of diet grapefruit soda that fayanora had dumped on me after she decided she didn't like them. Those were pretty much the only fluids I got for 8-12 hours.

I can see that I need to add a few other items. Like some packages of gelatin. Old trick for getting nourishment into folks with delicate stomachs. Dissolve the gelatin (flavored is good, unflavored will do) in hot water and drink it.

As it was, even if I could have tolerated it, I could count on being able to stay vertical long enough to *make* soup.

It wasn't until Wed afternoon that I was able to risk it. Got the water and chicken noodle soup concentrate into the pot and turned it on low. Then crawled back into bed. Since I sometimes have a pot on the stove all day when I'm only feeling a bit under the weather, I knew there wasn't any risk of it burning.

I finally got some into me an hour or two later. About a cup or so. Drunk very slowly and carefully.

Later I was able to "upgrade" to my more "traditional" bit of soaking hunks of bread in the liquid and then sort of gumming the parts that had softened.

I have to figure out what to do for the next batch of food in a bit. My choices are a bit limited at the moment. For example, I'm not gonna risk chili even if I have a lot of cans of it. Maybe the beef stew?

ps. yes, if my temp had gone much higher I'd have called 911

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* Glad to hear you're getting better. Jiijiinis and Alorno must have heard me. :-)

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Yow... (Hugs remotely.)

Had a nurse tell me recently that exertion can bring out a bug which otherwise would just leave one feeling a bit under the weather, or even normal. It's nature's way of making you rest until well.

Tip for the future: A small jar of bullion. Better yet, two or three of different flavors. With the seal intact they'll remain fresh forever. You might have to use more water than normal with a queasy stomach.

[kengr]

I thought about using the soup base I have (I buy in bulk for flavoring rice dishes and the like). But that stuff (soup base and bullion) is mostly salt & fat. Not bad for getting some electrolytes into you, but nutritionally not so hot.

[mikkop.livejournal.com]

Uh. Well-wishes from here.

Hope you get better. :/