strike that

Sicko de Mayo

While many Portlanders spent Friday night celebrating pseudoMexican heritage with margaritas and mariachi, I caught a stomach bug and spent Friday night puking up all of my internal organs. I think I still have a spine. When I wasn’t puking I was shivering under my covers with feverish nightmares about unpleasant food, accented by the sound of fireworks drifting in my window from the waterfront.

I haven’t been good and sick in quite a while, for which I am tremendously grateful. It is alarming how quickly one can feel betrayed by one’s own body. A body that on any average day is synonymous with oneself, but that then suddenly becomes separate and sinister. I have surprising resolve in the face of many Big Things, and my own illness is not one of them.

Yesterday was a day of waiting it out, because reading and talking and listening and any sort of movement made me hurt, and my fever came and went in waves. At ten in the morning I guessed it was four in the afternoon. On the plus side my housemate juggled for me.

I drank cold gingerale and flat Coke and frozen cubes of green Gatorade like my mom used to make when I stayed home sick from school, and later in the evening when noise was not so jarring I watched many episodes of the Office. It wasn’t the festive weekend I’d hoped for but at least I’m coming out of it in one ninety-eight degree piece. One day soon I may even eat solid food again. Tamales, perhaps. But maybe just rice.

posted by tortaluga @ 2:29 PM