Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Vomiting in Public

Well, it finally happened: I threw up in public. My Hyperemesis had been so extreme last month that I rarely left the house except for work. After a month of this, I was desperate to go out and have fun. I had been feeling a little bit better every day. The husband had planned to take me up to Salem for my birthday to see friends, and I was just itching to go. I hadn't thrown up in two weeks at that point, and was starting to get a little energy back; I thought I would be fine.

I wasn't. I vomited at the Atlanta airport into a trash can in the rotunda. I vomited again into a plastic bag from the gift shop at Boston Logan a few days later. I'm still sick. I had been weaning myself off of the nausea medication, which makes me sleepy and fogs my thoughts. I thought I would be all right without the meds. I'm not all right. I'm still sick.

There's something about collaspsing on the pavement outside of an airport and heaving your guts out that is worse than anything in the world. It's not just that the pavement is cold, but that no matter who is whith you, you are alone in that no-place place, the airport which isn't ever exactly part of any town or city, just a waystation to somewhere else. And then, no matter how ill you've been, you have to get up and get through security to get to your plane. That was a rough day.

I had a really great time in New England, though. It was so nice to see the parade in Salem on Friday night, where all the little kids were dressed up for Halloween. The holiday has been dying a slow death at the hands of Southern Baptists down here, and it was just a breath of fresh air to go some place and see the thing celebrated with all the innocence I attached to Halloween when I was a kid. I miss real Halloween, the holiday without wierd associations and guilt.

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