Shit Conquers All

(This is a follow up to "On His Food Poisoning," below).

So Wednesday night, I spend puking and shivering, tossing sleeplessly in my bed.

Thursday I stop puking but am weak and achy. I manage to eat and hold down a rice cake.

Friday I eat an egg sandwich for breakfast and hold it down, but I'm noticing a certain degree of incontinence. I cough, I sneeze, I burp - and suddenly I need to change my underwear. I go through about three pair on Friday before I simply start trying to mop up the little puddles in my shorts, so at least they're dry-ish - I can't change my shorts every time, or I'll have no shorts left. Friday I feel well enough to make it to work and leave materials for my sub. Later, after a nap, I make it to McLeod's books to sell a few books, and I manage to take in a full meal at a Japanese restaurant, and hold it down; I'm assuming that things have run their course - as past experiences of food poisoning would teach.

Friday night, the symptoms aren't gone, though: they've morphed. I'm shitting yellow-green liquid every twenty minutes. My stomach gurgles and a fart threatens and by now I know that odds are 50/50 that that it will be in liquid form, so I make it to the toilet and shoot hot liquid out my ass, usually ending on a dramatic, lengthy burst of flatulence. My ass is raw from wiping. I have to wipe little bits of shit-liquid off my bathroom floor, from when I stand up to wipe and it drips off me. I end up cancelling all plans and staying home, watching Lars von Trier's The Kingdom on VHS, because my DVD player is fucked (fuck!). Then I watch George Carlin on Youtube for awhile. I try to keep hydrated - first with Gatorade, which is usually recommened to balance electrolytes; then with water, when I begin to worry that the sugar in the Gatorade is aggravating things.

Saturday morning, I wake up with the typical signs of mild dehydration - drymouth, a slight headache - and trek to the toilet, and shit still more of my endless supply of yellow-green liquid. (Was Job ever visited with food poisoning?) Poison Control tells me via the phone that it's time to go see a doctor, so I'm off for a trek to St. Paul's. It's 7AM, so hopefully the lineup of street people and addicts wanting pain meds will be thinned out a bit and there will only be truly bloodied and broken types in the waiting room with me.

St. Paul's is one of the most depressing places I've been, but no matter. I'll bring a book - This Sweet Sickness, by Patricia Highsmith, I think. It's a coincidence that the word "sickness" is in the title.

So far, all plans are off. I was supposed to be gambling at a casino today with my parents. No can do. I am still hoping to make a dinner that's planned for Sunday, but I can't be sure that it'll be possible. Two Slices of Acoustic Car, on Sunday night? Questionable. Work Monday? Well, we'll see.

Just thought I'd keep y'all posted.