So I was looking forward to allowing myself a little treat at Easter. Maybe an egg or two or perhaps a hot cross bun – or a warm happy one, ho ho ho. Sorry, wrong season. Anyway my diet had to come to a crashing end on Wednesday night last week going into Thursday because – and I promise I won’t spare you any of the gory details! – I caught some kind of sickness bug/virus.
Actually I lied. For I WILL spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say I lost my lunch last week. My tea, breakfast… you get the idea. I’ve never had something like that before and no idea what caused it. Apparently it can be a bug you just catch in the air! Or it could’ve been something I ate…
Nil by mouth!
Apparently gastroenteritis is the generic name for food poisoning, so-called Winter vomiting illness and the Norovirus. So my beloved has decided what I got was the Lauravirus. Got a ring about it hasn’t it! Bang goes my record of never having had food poisoning and not caring what I put into my mouth. Maybe it wasn’t food poisoning but it was the same symptoms.
We were so scared at one point we had to call the doctor out. Who, bless her, came. That wasn’t the end of the story though, nor the mercy mission necessary. The workmen who’ve been digging up the road outside my house for the last four months were really going at it so we had to make a dash across town to my partner’s house as I just couldn’t stand it and needless to say you can’t very well ask workmen to down tools to let someone who’s been ill rest and recuperate. Imagine you were about to die and your last day on earth was having to hear persistent house-shaking drilling! For they do say your hearing is the last thing to go.
Back to carbs
The doc gave me a very thorough examination and some anti-emetics (which don’t just stop you being sick but get rid of that equally horrible nauseous feeling which is like having someone lying on your chest pressing down and strangling you from inside). I do recommend you ask for these if you are ever unfortunate enough to catch the Lauravirus. They work and as an added bonus they help you sleep too.
“Try some dry toast” the doc suggested. “When you can.” Which wasn’t for another 48 hours. I couldn’t face food but when I could… it was only dry toast that I wanted. Same advice my Mum used to give us when we were sick as kids. Well not advice. It was what she gave us. So was a link back to that time when you were a kid and, if you were lucky, had a nice Mum to take care of you whenever you got sick. Which course not everyone had – my partner for one!
True love cares
Which is why I get a bit teary-eyed here thinking about what a total star he was taking care of me. Giving me the care he never had as a child. His mother – EVIL WITCH that she was – treated any of her kids getting ill as a personal insult to her. How dare you do this to me! (I have his full permission for this disclosure, by the way.) He thinks, and I entirely agree with him, that this kind of thing shouldn’t be kept hidden. Just because someone has given birth and has the word MOTHER tattoo-ed across her forehead doesn’t give her the right to be automatically regarded as A Good Person but I digress… he was such a star I’m sure it aided my recovery which was almost as rapid as the onset of the very brief illness.
So where now Paleo?
Trouble is it’s left me with a legacy of great distrust towards food. I’m not saying my Paleo way of eating made me sick. I’m sure it didn’t. But all I’ve wanted these past few days is very bland food. Just toast, scrambled eggs and a bit of chicken with mashed potatoes. There’s no getting away from it, comfort food when you’ve been sick is carb loaded! Hell today I even ate a delicious floury white roll and it tasted like nectar. Could actually feel my appetite returning, slowly. The nauseous feelings haven’t entirely gone and I’ve no idea when I’ll feel able to eat normally again. But a bread roll? What the hell, I should’ve been eating an Easter egg today! And I’m not sure there is a Paleo equivalent of dry toast to get you eating again after being violently ill.
Shock!
It was all a horrible shock… I’m used to suffering from anxiety and various forms of what could be called mental ill health. But physically I’m in pretty good shape for 58. Hardly ever get a cold. I’m actually absolutely bloody OUTRAGED at being sick! But least it happened just before the Easter break so I could just relax – or try to! – and take it easy and not have to worry about work. There is always an upside. And in fact I had quite a nice Easter. Being forced to take it easy and just sit on the sofa watching rubbish TV – and some good stuff too! – and tweeting didn’t truly feel like a hardship.
Lucky
I am so very lucky to have escaped with no lasting harm beyond a much-reduced appetite. And bubalas I AM on a diet so a little less eating, what could it hurt? My greatest sense of luck though is having my John by my side the whole time. Taking care of me. Even coming up with the brilliant idea of getting the doctor to visit his house instead of mine and then fashioning a makeshift sickbag so we could escape across town to get away from the drilling. Now THAT’S consideration.
Have a good week and hope you managed to have a good Easter.
