I never, ever, ever, ever, ever want to feel like that again.
Ever.
EVER.
Around the sixth round of vomiting, I began to wonder if this was what dying felt like. By the ninth (and, thankfully, final) round, I was pretty sure that I had come close.
Three things astounded me during this bout with Abdominal Death:
1) My bathroom floor is quite dirty.
2) The human stomach holds an incredible amount of stuff. I think I lost food I'd eaten in kindergarten.
3) You really can keep yourself from fainting. It'll hurt like hell and freak you out, and you'll wish you'd gone ahead and just fainted, but it can be done.
I don't think I got to the point of throwing up my toenails, but I'm pretty sure that in my stomach's quest for something to yack up, I got at least as far as my kneecaps. Do you have any idea what gastric acid tastes like when it's the only liquid left in your body? Battery acid would have been preferable.
My dumbest move of the week, though, came after I wrote to the future doctor and asked when I should be worried about dehydration, calling 911, etc. He wrote back and said that as long as I was able to keep some Pedialyte down for a little bit, it would help keep my electrolytes at a fairly safe level.
All right. Pedialyte. And Safeway is a few blocks away. And I feel like I've got a good hour before I lose it again.
So I went.
(It was early - too early to hope that any of my friends would be awake)
Sometime between the dipstick in front of me trying to return his Christmas lights and the even less-bright cashier calling for the manager because she couldn't figure out how to return them ... it hit.
Oh, Lord. It hit.
I've fainted in a public place before, and I wasn't keen on repeating the experience. So I crouched down on the ground, barely inching forward when it was my turn to be checked out. Mary The Dimmest Cashier in the World took her sweet time ringing me up, took even more time before she asked if I was going to need anything else, and finally: "Are you OK, honey?"
Rabbit Trail: Why - WHY?!? - is it that the first question people ask you when you a) have just woken up from fainting or b) look like you're headed that way is: "Are you OK?" Seriously? I'm on the floor, and you think there's a remote chance that I might be OK? You think I like hanging out on your floor?
"No," I whispered. "I'm not OK."
***
In any other (normal) Safeway, the bathrooms are at the front of the store. Not so here.
***
"Where are your restrooms?" I whispered, staggering a little (My vision was going at this point).
"Over there, down aisle 12, honey," Mary the Dimwit said.
Aisle 12 might as well have been in Canada. I wasn't going to make it.
I made it to the lottery vending machine. Sat down. Put my head between my knees.
And I thought: "Huh. I shoulda called someone."
And then I thought: "S&$^. I left my car running in the parking lot."
I really, really couldn't see anything at this point, couldn't really hear coherently, and my hands and feet were buzzing. Not tingling - buzzing. It was my scariest moment in recent memory.
Despite that, I feebly (stupidly) nodded "yes" to several faded-sounding inquiries of "are you/is she OK?"
The only thing I could think to do was grab for one of the bottles of Pedialyte I'd just bought and start chugging. I figured I'd probably barf it right back up, but since I was already sitting - white and shaking - on the floor of a grocery store, I'd already passed the point of being embarrased about anything.
Began chugging. Immediately began sweating.
And I mean sweating.
I could feel it trickling down my back, beading up on my face, running down my neck.
Drink. Sweat. Drink. Sweat.
Vision came back.
Drink. Sweat.
Since I was past the point of embarrassment, I felt no shame in lying on the floor, feet propped up on a pole, staring up at the machine vending about thirty varieties of lottery tickets. "What a horrible place to die," I thought ...
My hands and feet eventually quite buzzing and tingling; I could see. I could hear. I sat back up, and the manager passed by again: "Oh, good. You have some color back. You were really, really white. I've never seen anyone that color before." Really ...?
Finally, shaking, sweating, but able to see, hear and support my own body weight, I pulled myself to my feet, with one goal: Get outside, get into the cold air. I felt like I was suffocating there on the floor.
I got outside, and the cold air did the job I'd wanted it to. Unfortunately, it was a bit too cold for someone drenched in sweat and recovering from a near-faint. I've had a cold ever since.
Thirty minutes after I'd sat down on the floor, I finally made it back to my car, where I sat for another long while.
I eventually made it home - where I lost half of what I'd guzzled while sitting on the floor.
Lesson learned: Who cares if your friends are asleep. Wake 'em up. They'll go get the damn Pedialyte for you. I've been chastised by no fewer than five people for my stupidity.
And it was stupid. Really, really stupid.
