Sick of Being Sick

After this summer, I was sure that I had paid my dues and wouldn't throw up for another year, at least. Admittedly, I haven't drunk myself sick in some time (since, I think, the Cafeteria Christmas party the year I quit). I was, however, hospitalized this summer when I couldn't stop vomiting. Two hours of throwing up your own bile is enough to make your stomach muscles cringe at the thought and your throat sore for several weeks, not to mention draining your body of all energy it ever had. Prior to that little episode was an eight hour vomit-a-thon just before University convocation while my body tried to purge itself of the peanut-laced baklava I had eaten following a most delightful summer picnic with my mum. Compared to an anaphalactic rush to the emergency ward for life-saving injections and oxygen, thowing up was quite a mild reaction and I didn't even mind the sore throat that followed for the next few weeks (wearing off just in time for the hospitalization incidentally).

I come out of these experiences with an addiction to cough drops and an optimistic hope that I have at least a year of being sick-free. Alas.

The damned peanuts caught up with me again, this time at one of their favorite haunts (why wasn't I expecting it??) a little Vietnamese restaurant in China town. Tricky damned things fooled me into thinking it was just the peanuts in everyone else's food that were bothering me. It couldn't be my own food, not with the waiter repeating my order twice with "no peanuts" and a reassuring smile. I downed a handy pink benadryl and made it through dinner. I put my chances of throwing up at 65% after the meal. I went with my family to look at the River Front Aquarium and felt marginally better, putting my chances down to 45%. Sometime on the car ride home though, I got that feeling. I managed to make it home. That's when I knew that my meal had peanuts in it, too. Passing back up my throat, being torn apart and ripped open and vulnerable to the sneak attack, peanuts once again led a successful attack. I managed to grab another couple of pills and clutch my epipen, cuddling with my mum while she watched baseball. Eventually, my throat opened enough for me to croak a little if I wanted to talk. Vomiting, however, continued until 9am the next morning.

The moral of this story:
a) Never let your guard down, peanuts are some sneaky bastards.
b) The world now owes me at least 2 year of being sick-free!