Emesis

It means vomit, and I promise, only one story involving alcohol. But it is an intense and miserable experience common to the human condition. It is also the moment when we feel least human. Nothing concentrates the mind so much, if only on the gut. It brings out both the best and the worst in the people around us, often at the same time, because it is suggestively contagious. It is a lonely trial to endure alone, and humiliating to be the one witnessed.

Migraines have haunted my life, during stressful periods of grade school I had them 3-4 days a week. Light was acutely painful, my head seared, but nausea was the worst part. I would lie very, very, very...... still. The idea of movement intolerable, even seeing other people move disturbed me. Eventually, my stomach would heave up, and I would empty out. Often my mother would make sure I had a bowl for the purpose (appropriately one of those blotchy plastic ones popular at the time), since running to the bathroom was an excruciating journey. She would close the venetian blinds, and I would huddle on the couch in a small knot of suffering. Usually after the eruption, I would sleep for an hour and wake feeling much better. This was in a time when migraines were not a childhood diagnosis, since children obviously had nothing to be stressed about. My mother soothed my distress.

Mom was going to get her hair done at her sister's in Windsor. I woke up ill, but told her I was better, I was 'fine really.' I was 17 and capable, no problem, it would pass. No sooner did she get out the door, but I started vomiting, over and over until I had nothing left to spew, and still kept going. Finally called her, feeling bad about calling long distance, and told her I was very sick. She couldn't come home right away, without burning her hair, so I said I could wait, what else could she do? I was just alone and scared and sick, not really in danger.

I don't really remember her coming home, but I remember being in the ER, and getting my first pelvic exams under distressing circumstances, still nauseated, crying, and getting exasperated trying to get them to believe I could not be pregnant. I'd not so much as been kissed at that point, it was ridiculous and galling to have to explain this. More so that they didn't seem to believe me. (It was a uterine tube infection, and I would spend the next two days on IV antibiotics.) At one lull in the exams, a round nurse in a stained white uniform, with soft warm blue black skin, stood quietly beside me, holding my hand, I laid my head on her and cried. That was all she did, and it made me feel cared for, safe for the first time that day.

On the eve of my 21st birthday, I went on a college field trip to Kalamazoo for a speech class, I was to perform the The Mountain Whippoorwill the second day. The evening of the first involved students from the several schools gathering at a hotel room in the conference center to drink massive quantities of Budweiser. My first time having more than a single drink of anything. When I'd had my too much Bud, my mouth was numb, I got kissed, and I started my first hangover an hour after the last drink. I toured several porcelain altars, made my offerings.

Remember running as fast as I could down the two-lane, dark highway to get to my room at the Ho Jo's. I spent the night repeating the ritual, and only got sleep, of a sort, late in the morning. I barely managed to drag myself to the conference center, and it all started up again. Much to the amusement of my fellow revelers of the night before. Due to poor signs, I could not find a necessary restroom, and had to use an out-of-the-way corner of carpet. I had no interest in any kind of performance at this point, and I do not clearly recall the trip home, save feeling ashamed, and glad that I was not close to anyone else from that class. I knew I had made a serious mistake, the alcohol was toxic to me, and I would never drink that badly again. I never passed out, I had no oblivion, and I couldn't feel the kiss. Not to say I never got drunk, or hungover again, but I learned. I was always after aware of how much I drank in how much time, and exactly how drunk I was. It became an experiment, with the toxic reaction as a potent punishment for failure. Vomiting was not funny to me, I did not want to be 'The Drunk Who Spewed' joke again.

The morning I started Basic, I was up at 2 am with diarrhea. It would continue through the MEPPS station, thankfully I knew where the restrooms where there because of the earlier urine tests. Made it to the airport, but as soon as the plane started taxiing, I started throwing up. I would continue to use the barf bag on every take off and landing, and in the toilets in-between across the country. By the time I landed at the Newark Airport you could whistle through me. Cathartic experience, both physically and psychically. Clean start it was, and felt like it at the time. Lonely, but it felt like a test that I passed. Hungry for a new start.

The worst though was the case of gastritis I developed in Saudi Arabia in the Army housing. I was alone on my day off, the only one on my floor. No way to contact anyone, and I was throwing up every twenty minutes or so, with nothing on my stomach to start with. After about four hours I thought I heard someone walking through the hall and called out as best I could. It was Cpt. Crockett, getting something from her room, a RN, and my saviour. She got me down to the CO, who got me driven out to the site. I tried to drink some water, knowing I was dehydrated, but guess what happens when you drop 16oz of water on an empty inflamed stomach? Yup, more toilet touring. I was handed around and finally got to a doc, who gave me a shot of compazine, and a cot for the night in the tent hospital, a place to lie down with someone to make sure I got some food. After I slept several hours, I felt much better -though rung out. Only then did I manage to call D. He had no idea where I was, had only lately been told I was at the site hospital, he was frantic trying to find out what had happened to me. Competent help, good drugs, and someone who cared for me, it turned out ok.

D would be my rescuer many times. Once, I'd come home from work, and felt very tired and dizzy. The dizziness kept getting worse, so that I was spinning, then whirling, and my eyes were doing that thing that happens when you spin a kid around too long. It's called strabismus, the eyes tracking movement that is not happening, conflicting with one's actual position in space, for one thing.

Yeah, well, you know what the result of that was. I was spinning- lying very, very still, eventually just wretchedly dry heaving with a pan beside me. By about 6 am I was in desperate shape, called my doc, who rather irritably told me it was probably vestibulitis and to get to the ER. (Well, you know what health insurance can be like if you don't call your primary first.) I just said ok, and woke up D to say I needed to get to the ER. He'd not had a restful night's sleep, woken to my retching every hour or less, so he was also a bit tetchy. Nevertheless, he called the Taxi, got an empty Big Gulp cup for the trip, got me dressed- no mean feat given my balance issues, and got me to the ER at the hospital where I work. I had called ahead, don't know if it helped, but maybe.

Did you know, seven AM is the best time to go to the Emergency Room? Fresh staff, not too much business. A Lovely young man slid an IV painlessly into my arm. The ER Doc, well she gave me beautiful drugs and the tastiest liter of fluid I have ever had through my vein. I stabilized and the spinning was down to a slow oscillation within the hour, D watching me, looking much relieved of his worry. I crawled along the walls up to surgery to let them know I would not be in that day, and elicited much sympathy and concern, and insistence that I get home. The whirlies lasted a few days, got us out of a plane trip- never a bad thing, and made me feel very fragile for a long while.

Last year, I took care of post-operative day surgery patients who frequently vomit. Armed with drugs, and some very good Just-in-Case bags, IV fluids, and a strong stomach. But sometimes it was not enough, and they just have to go through the process, reset the peristalsis, and go home feeling nauseated and miserable. I just hope they have quiet and sympathy, but not too many witnesses. I feel for them.