Don’t make Losing Weight a Resolution: Norovirus

Why should you not do that, I ask? Why should you not throw a stupid, off the cuff thing like wishing to lose weight into the ether? BECAUSE SANTA HAS A FUCKING SENSE OF HUMOR IS WHY. So yeah, I lost weight on Christmas… 4 days of not eating much of anything and violently puking will do that to a person.

So here’s the story: I ended up in the emergency room at 4am on Christmas Day. Got a shot (NOT IN THE ARM) for pain. Had to swallow Lidocaine for such intense, stabbing stomach pains. Writhed in agony from 8pm to 4am due to (I am about 80% sure here) the insane acid reflux from all the puking having irritated my esophagus and weird esophagus nerve pain transferring to my upper back. Didn’t know that was a thing, but Google says it’s rare but possible, and considering the back pain went away with swallowing the Lidocaine it seems to be the case.

Now, originally I thought it was food poisoning, and it might be. But it also looks like my husband and 8 year old got a lighter (SO THANKFUL WAS LIGHTER) bout as well, so might be norovirus. The description of women with it saying they’d rather be in labor than suffer through norovirus again is spot on considering I said that EXACT thing at least twice. And that it goes away… and then can come back. Because the abject horror of having another night on Thursday like I did on Monday was insane. I thought I was better.

And here’s the weird part. That second go round I KINDA had pegged what the back pain was about. So while I couldn’t do anything for the violent puking, alternating hot and cold water from the shower onto my upper back… it kinda tricked the transferred nerve pain into going away. I’m sure my husband checking on me facedown in a running shower was weird. The choice to ask me “Are you asleep?” instead of “Are you dead?” must have taken some back and forth for the poor guy. I wasn’t either, but was pretty close to both. He wouldn’t have worried so much if he had seen the Cirque du Soleil move I’d pulled of turning the water from cold to hot with one leg while not moving my upper back off the marble shower tile floor. Flexibility is all in your head, turns out. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

So yeah. Remind me not to ask for someone to declutter the house next year so Santa doesn’t send a goddamn house fire my way.