Geekman's World: Doin' the Nor-Walk

One would assume that in the average person's lifetime, one would only need suffer the God-awful effects of the Norovirus once, and only once.

But fate decided that once was not enough for me to understand what its like to void one's digestive tract in both directions, simultaneously. So I spent most of Sunday night doing exactly that, and not much else.

Angela and Jeff also came down with this horrible disease on Sunday. Because Angela was ill, I volunteered to help make dinner for the Co-Op, shortly before I myself fell ill. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying that I haven't infected an entire community-household.

Interesting Factoids!

Things I have experienced (besides the aforementioned) in the past 24 hours:

- Retching on an empty stomach
- Being too nauseous to drink water and keep it down
- Trying to decide what would be less painful: eating or not eating
- Waking in the middle of the night to intense abdominal pain
- Spending several minutes feverishly mumbling "make it stop" whilst rocking back and forth

Things I ate in the first 24 hours of my illness:

- Nothing

Things I have eaten (and not thrown up) in the past 24 hours:

- Most of a small, peeled, and thinly-sliced apple (well-chewed)
- 6 grapes
- 1 piece of toast
- A small bowl of jello

I'm finally at the point now where I may be able to keep some rice from dinner down. Tomorrow, it will be back to work, whether I'm feeling 100% or not, because certain of my employers and co-workers tend to get surly when I take ANY sick days, much less two in a row.

If there's anything better than having to go through such an awful ordeal. It's having your smug co-worker (who never gets sick) complain about how much extra work he had to do in your absence.

if they complain, offer them a choice of which end they would like aimed at them during your next simultaneous expulsion.

Jeff seems to be better now (he managed to eat small amounts of food last night and a regular amount this morning), though he says he feels a pretty much constant need to burp - like his body, in lieu of food, filled itself with air. :/

I want to offer my apologies to you guys for the discomfort. I feel it was my fault for infrecting you. I was ill for Thursday and part of Friday and thought that I was beyond infecting people by the time I saw you guys on Saturday as I was back to feeling 100% by then. I hope that you all feel better soon.

Oh dude! that sounds like fucking blast! ok seriously, no, that sucks. I hope you feel better soon so that you can kick that smug co-worker and Chris in the nuts.

Chris: Not your fault. I'm sure by this time Ang, Jeff and I have inadvertently spread it to other people. Denai mentioned that Jerry had it too, so we might have gotten it from other family members?

eep! I've been similarly sick for a similar interval. Sounds like Jesse had it a little worse than me, but I've lost five pounds since Saturday. No fever, just gastrointestinal distress. Very happy to be on the mend.

Two things. A recent article in the paper mentions that we all need more vitamin D, about 1000 IU's a day to booster our immune systems in the winter when we are not getting enough sunlight due to indoor jobs and weather conditions and also when you are that sick, try eating salted crackers. Apparently the salt kills some of that viral matter in the stomach. So any way you can get salt into you will help.

It sounds like you guys have morning sickness....I've done pretty much your routine for the last 2 months. Bryn is much more sympathetic now! :-)

That's the wierd thing, I'm the only one in the family here that has succumbed to this illness, everyone else has managed to avoid it. Glad to hear that folks are on the mend :-)

Chris: If it is INDEED a norovirus (which I suspect it is, given the degree of hellishness), then there is a susceptibility based on blood type. Individuals with Type O are especially susceptible, while those with Type B or AB are afforded some protection.