Reflections on (and of!) Projectile Vomiting

May 25th, 2007 by Potato

Warning: explicit, nasty, overly descriptive accounts of bodily functions gone horribly awry follow.

I’ve been pretty sick the last few days — I haven’t slept well the last few weeks, partly due to work, weddings, allergies, allergy medication-induced paranoia, and a nasty case of the nerves regarding the impending Japan trip. So it seems to have caught up with me in the last few days with some mild nausea, severe fatigue, and the sweats. I threw up a little yesterday, but after that I started to feel a bit better, and after taking the day off work and sleeping for 12 hours, I actually felt normal when I woke up yesterday evening (my sleep schedule is completely off-track now). Then today, it’s back to feeling sick again. I threw up a little again today — just a small purge like yesterday, but this time I didn’t feel better afterwards. I went to the sink to rinse out my mouth and brush my teeth, when I was hit with another wave. I took a quick step to the left to get back over the toilet…

Now, Wayfare has said that I’m terrible at throwing up, and apparently it’s true: I focus more on getting my head above the toilet than close to it. In other words, I don’t hit my knees fast enough (or, as is usually the case with me, at all: and leaning over while upright does seem to give more leverage, it doesn’t lead to aim)…

…so I lean over the toilet, and a huge wave of projectile vomit flies out. I’m pretty sure it was the entire contents of my stomach in just two heaves. Now, the interesting thing about this is that it makes a huge mess. In the force of my expulsions, I managed to create a cone that was wider than the toilet bowl — there’s mess on the back, on the sides, on the front… ugh. My eyes are all tearing up and my throat burns, and I don’t feel much better. Then I see that there are little droplets that have bounced off the toilet bowl and flown around the room — there are even a few on the wall behind me! That’s some crazy reflection ability! In fact, I’ve always kind of been a little bit in awe of just how hard my stomach could convulse when it wanted to. I always figured that disgusting slurry would lose some velocity on the way up, since I doubt reverse peristalsis is going along that quickly (or can handle a bolus that big), or at the very least when it has to make “the turn”. Although, to get even more disgusting, sometimes I get some in my sinuses that way (and all it takes is a drop to ruin breathing for the rest of the afternoon).

Of course, that leads to two very unpleasant conclusions: the first being that I am likely inhabited by some kind of demon, or possibly a hostile alien parasite. The second is that it is highly likely that if I got… ick… on the wall behind me, then I almost certainly got it on the nice, clean hand towels behind me as well. So I have to go down to the basement and do some laundry. And of course, as soon as I get to the bottom of the stairs, there’s a giant black spider waiting for death. I don’t get the creepy giant black spiders I’ve been seeing so much of lately; for years house spiders were small and pale yellow and liked hiding in corners where they didn’t bother you and you didn’t bother them. Now they’re these great big scary looking things that like hanging out in the middle of the floor or halfway down the wall — places where they look intimidating, ready to strike. This is also just perfectly horrible because part of the reason I haven’t been able to sleep is that I had a run of nightmares about spiders last week.

I think I’m going back to bed.

2 Responses to “Reflections on (and of!) Projectile Vomiting”

  1. Rez Says:

    Ew.

    BTW I’m still waiting for somebody to post SOMETHING about Starcraft 2 already…

  2. Wayfare Says:

    BEND OVER THE TOILET!! *BEND DOWN*!!! I’ve already had to clean your vomit off of ALL 4 BATHROOM WALLS once before, now the novelty has worn off. After that last incident you were taught the correct form and posture to prevent this from happening again! Don’t force me to put diagrams above the toilet.

    *sigh* I don’t get paid enough.