Pulling a Sickie

Warning: This is a very gross entry!

I have this amazing ability to get sick when I'm on holiday. So the day after I get back from Europe I wake up at the ass crack of dawn, feeling surprisingly good. What jetlag? I have some cereal at 8am, then am starving and can only wait till 10.30am for lunch. I start to feel extremely lethargic and hop in the shower. I start to feel nauseous. Not good. So after having a very productive morning of doing all my holiday laundry, and trying to impress my parents by doing their laundry too, I spend the remainder of the day laying down on my parents' new lazy boy chair, trying not to move. I was intending on doing some work work, for work, but rubbing my tummy became an all consuming task. Pathetic. I spent all afternoon willing myself to feel better as I was supposed to go out to dinner with my parents and my grandfather, and I was thinking of making myself go, and just sipping soda and not eating, but thank goodness I didn't. The retching began right around when we would have been arriving at the restaurant and continued for the next 6 hours. I couldn't even keep a couple sips of coke/ginger ale down. Nasty!

Then began the classic mother-daughter debate. My mum, being a very concerned mum, was worried that I didn't have any fluids in me and kept trying to get me to drink something, but I knew that whatever I had to drink would not be staying in my body for very long, so why bother? I thought my stomach just needed to be completely empty so that there was absolutely NOTHING that could prompt any more retching...I wanted to try to fall asleep. So I dozed off and woke up at 3am, 4am, 5am, finally got out of bed at 5am....wanted some tylenol to cure my achiness (equivalent of panadol) but was afraid it wouldn't stay down.

Anyhoo, I think the worst is over...I might actually try some toast in a few hours - woo-hoo! Though I did just suffer some lovely humiliation. I'm sitting here in the kitchen, typing on the 'puter and my next door neighbour comes over to the window and says, "Oh, hi, Lori! Are you home for good this time?" I say I'm only home for a few weeks, and that I'm heading back to Oz at the end of July. She looks at me hard and says, "So, you're happy there?" And I said that I am definitely still enjoying Sydney. And she says, "Well, that's what matters then. As long as you're happy." Yup. She had come over to turn off our sprinklers. I was trying not to laugh at her gaping, her utterly shocked expression. In short, this is the worst condition she has ever seen me in. I look like death. Pale and nasty, I'm talking NO LIPSTICK here people (note, that's how you know I'm really sick, when I can't even put the tube to my mouth!) and my hair is one big dreadlock/knot at the moment. WHY did she have to come over right then? It's 8am!!! She's probably going to go home and tell her husband, "Gee, I don't think Australia is agreeing with Lori, she's looks like total crap!"

Apologies for writing about puking instead of my Lori National Lampoon's European Holiday, but I had to get my humiliating neighbour story out of the way....