[image error]I know I’m being dramatic but that is what writers do. Storytellers have to get their audience attached to their character, invested in their goals, and being dramatic will accomplish these important writer’s goals. Are you waiting to hear why I’m alive? Did I put the need for you to know why I’m alive? In what way am I alive today, that I may not have been yesterday or the day before?

In my own brand of writer’s style, let me set the scene. Last weekend we went to an one day dog agility trial and used an outhouse for our lavatory needs, we ate on the fly a packed lunch. My wife and I were exhausted after we got home because we were out in the sun all day from 7 am until 4:30 pm. My wife says’ to me, “I may not go to work tomorrow because I’m so tired.” I replied, “Well, maybe after a good night’s sleep you’ll feel better.” My wife smiled weakly and said, “I’d doubt it.” The next morning she went to work reluctantly but said she did feel a bit better.

When me wife got home she said again, she was so tired and didn’t feel all that well. In a few hours we found out in true stomach flu style just why she wasn’t feeling so well. In the grips of the nasty norovirus, my wife says, “maybe it was the pork chop that sat in the fridge all weekend that she ate, or the lettuce must have had Ecoli” She promptly threw the lettuce out after another violent trip to the toilet. I was hoping and praying it was only a nasty case of food poisoning because it’s not contagious.

I was wrong, and how? It began with three days of exhaustion. I began to think I had some really bad illness or something worse. I had no energy and by the end of the week I had convinced myself it was just energy-sapping stress or anxiety. You see we were going to spend time with the family of a friend of my wife’s who took her life. I was anxious about being around that sort of grief. I’m a very empathic person and I feel what the people around are feeling. I don’t go to hospitals for this very reason.

So, on the day of the visit, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything but go back to bed and sleep another couple of hours, after I had slept ten hours the night before. Yeah, it’s the anxiety, I thought as I sipped on flat ginger ale and nibbled on crackers. I sat through the visit, crying and feeling emotionally drained for a few hours, then the sheer weight of exhaustion hit me. I didn’t think I could wait to get home. I nibbled on crackers and sipped some more ginger ale. I should be feeling better, so I ate a cookie and a small bowl of yogurt.

While sitting and watching TV with my wife, I suddenly felt the first wave of nausea, but unlike my usual bouts where dizziness hits me first there was just an intense wave of stomach churning, gut-wrenching nausea, and I knew the truth of the matter. It was a stomach flu one of those nasty viruses that creep up on you and them BAM it hits you with a wallop of a punch to the gut…literally and figuratively.

I sat up until I felt like I wasn’t going to throw up, I took gravol, pepto bismol, and sucked on fresh ginger. I went to sleep thinking that when I awoke I’d be better…it’s just the a stomach bug, right? I forgot about how some stomach viruses are more and they make you ill for longer. I believed I had the kind that just attacks your digestive system and then is gone…I was so wrong. I laid in bed all day Sunday thinking I would die. Stomach cramps, body aches like I haven’t felt in years, and the fatigue of a dying person…or the way, I believe a dying person feels like. Like if they sleep they’ll die and if they don’t, they’ll still die.

My wife checked in on me all day, asking if I needed anything or how I felt. My response was pretty much the same. “I new body”  or “Like a Mack truck hit me, backed up and drove over me again.” I had ginger ale, sitting flat in a can, a water of lukewarm water in bottle, a package of crackers going stale, all within reaching distance on the night table next to the bed. Nausea was gone, the cramps and body aches had taken over my body. I was afraid to take anything for the pain because it could make my stomach upset. I knew I needed something to rid me of these cramps and only one thing came to mind. My wife should be coming in the check on me soon, I thought. I can tell her then. But instead the place was filled with the smells of cooking that caused my stomach to churn and threatened to retch up the last sip of water. I yelled out, or at least I believed I yelled, maybe I just imagined I yelled. I didn’t hear my wife respond, so I yelled again. What the hell? I mean she checks in on me but she can’t hear me calling her. What if I’m dying? I will die alone. My miserable feeling of self -pity takes hold and just when I think my despair is too great, my wife pops in her head and says, “did you say something?” I wanted to scream at her, but I’m too tired, too weak, instead ask her to go to the store and get me some Pepto Bismol, only it can help me now. I took the last of it the night before and I’m sure it’s why I slept through the night without nausea or any other bouts of digestive turmoil but now the stomach is complaining and my body aches are too great to ignore…I need drugs again.

Well, the drugs helped enough that I was able to climb out of bed and make my way to the sofa to spend some time with my wife, we watched TV and I nibbled on a few crackers. The body aches were only a dull throb now, the stomach pain is minimal. I think I may survive, was my first thought and final one before I lay my head down to sleep.

This morning I woke up feeling drained, sore and achy again, I need another chug of the Pepto and a painkiller but I’M ALIVE.