The Four Horsemen Of The A-Puke-O-Lypse

The Vomit Brigade brought in reinforcements this time...


Today started like any other day with the exception of a 6-month checkup with my family physician, affectionately known as Dr. Awesome.  It was no big deal, just time to renew a couple of maintenance prescriptions.  My blood pressure today was low, even for me.  I have to reiterate that, even at my heaviest weight and largest size, my blood pressure was never a problem, always running in the low-to-normal range. One of the fat-lady bullets I managed to dodge, to the surprise of lots of people.  I will admit, somebody at the size I was usually would have hypertension, but I never did.  Today's reading was a personal record, though, at 107/54.  I texted The Hubs with my numbers and told him, "I think I might be dead!"  The only time I can remember a lower reading for myself was 90/60 following an outpatient surgery to remove a cyst on my back over a decade ago.  (The nurse was scared to let me go home with a reading that low, fearing I'd konk out on the way to the car!)

I had not seen Dr. Awesome since just a few weeks after my weight loss surgery and he seemed impressed with the amount of shrinkage that has happened so far.  He had a medical student with him today as well, and after telling me that I was "wasting away to nothing!", he told the student doctor, "This lady is a product of bariatric surgery."  We went over the typical question-and-answer portion of the checkup and he renewed my prescriptions, after which I scheduled my appointment for the annual physical (all except for the lady-parts stuff, that is the domain of Dr. FancyPants).

After my doctor's appointment my cousin Judy and I were planning to spend some time together, so I went to her house to pick her up, and we left for a nice, lengthy ladies lunch together.  We went to a place she goes to frequently and where I had never been before.  We were seated in a nice booth near the lovely fireplace in the restaurant, which was especially pleasant today because the temperature here never got above freezing.  Remember this mention of the cold, it will be important later.

We ordered our lunch, and we ate and talked and laughed...and I started to feel a little uncomfortable in my belly, like when I've eaten a bite too much, or eaten too fast.  I prayed silently that this would not be another clumping episode, stopped eating and got a to-go box for my leftovers.  I didn't really eat any more than I usually would, and what I ate was tasty.  But something, somehow went horribly wrong.

I excused myself and went to the ladies room because I felt queasy, but nothing much happened in there of the sick variety, and I started to feel a little better.  So we left to go pick up her daughter Katherine from school.  We went a little ways and waves of nausea started, along with sweating, and just as I finished asking, "Is there a place around here to pull over..."

The Four Horsemen of the A-Puke-O-Lypse came galloping forth.  This was not a small episode of clumping-related illness.  I puked like a rock star.  Like a drunken frat boy on a Sunday morning.  Like a champ.  Like I have not puked in years, maybe even decades.  I puked up way more than I had eaten at lunch.  All over me, all over the car, all over.

God bless Judy, she pointed out a place as quickly as possible where we could pull over.  And thank God, there was a change of clothes in the car.  But imagine, if you can, a 48-year-old grown woman changing clothes on the side of a busy roadway in sub-freezing temperatures, shielded only by a car door in the back and my cousin holding up my jacket like a curtain in the front!

No, this is not a pretty episode, and Yes, it is funny, so it's OK to laugh.  Even I can laugh about it.  Misfortunes like this are the stuff sitcom episodes are made of.  In all seriousness, though, I think I may have eaten something last night that didn't agree with me.  When I went to bed last night my stomach was very noisy and a little crampy, and I noticed that my back hurt, a common symptom in the past when I have had stomach flu or food poisoning.  So I am attributing this unfortunate episode either to a little virus or a little bite of something that might have been past its prime.

And this, my little friends, is why it is always good to keep trash bags, a change of clothes and baby wipes in the car at all times.  One never knows when The Four Horsemen of the A-Puke-O-Lypse may ride forth.