My Most Humiliating Day Ever

August 16, 2009

So, I thought I had figured out what was causing me to suddenly vomit.  I thought it was my meds, right??

Maybe not…. as I found out last week.

I met a good friend in Nashville the other day for dinner. It was a great day and I was looking forward to see my friend. I hadn’t seen her is a very long time and we had much to catch up on. We met at a favorite resturant and talked for 3 hours before ordering our food.  The time flew by as we chatted about everything going on in our lives.

Shortly after our dinner arrived, I suddenly had that bad feeling that something was not right in my stomach… that slightly nauseated feeling was back. I sat my fork down and while Debra was in mid-sentence I knew I had to leave the table quickly. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I started vomiting into my hands with terrific force.  I wasn’t even close to the bathroom!  I franticly made my way to the bathroom, trying to disappear from public view. As I opened the bathroom door, my heart stopped when I saw it was standing room only!  Without hesitation, I wiggled my way to the trash can as I continued to vomit…. only, there was another problem.  The trash container was built into the way of this nice restaurant and only had about an eight inch opening… not even enough to put my head into if I turned it sideways (which I tried), therefore, I had to bend over and use my hands to funnel the vomit into the trash as the episode continued non-stop.

That is all pretty bad, except it gets much worse.  As I’m bent over vomiting non-stop, I suddenly realize with the force of vomiting, I’m now close to diarrhea.  Still the stalls are full and the room is crowded. With the next wave of vomiting I HAD uncontrollable diarrhea… then the stall next to me opens and I rush in, still vomiting.

It still gets worse.

I manage to unbuckle my jeans, and prepare to sit down, then I start to vomit again.  There is more diarrhea and as I try to vomit in-between my thighs I miss and it goes inside my jeans!!!

The entire episode lasted maybe 15 to 20 minutes and it was the most horrifically humiliating experience I have ever had.  After it stopped, I still had to clean myself up enough to get out of the bathroom, out of the restaurant, out to the parking lot and to my car.  My friend came into the bathroom and started passing me wet paper towels which I used to clean myself and my clothes the best I could. What I didn’t absolute have to have to cover my body I threw away in the trash.

As I came out of the stall I noticed I was the only person left in the bathroom. I had single-handedly cleared a fully packed bathroom of women within minutes. The thought made me smile.

It took me another 30 minutes or so to regain and regroup enough for the hour drive home in wet clothes. Except it still gets worse.  Once I made to the car, I thought I could make it home without any more incident.  As I was remembering just how embarrassing this event had been, I noticed I was nearly out of gas!!  I had to stop and pump gas with these nasty, wet, stinky clothes on. I carefully picked a station without other cars there, except I was so upset by what had happened I entered my PIN number wrong three time and locked my card for 24 hours!!!!  To get my gas I would have to go inside and pay!!!

It was the most humiliating day of my life. And now I also know my sudden onset of vomiting is not related to my medications. Everything I went through last week was unneccessary.

I’ve already made my appointment with my pcp to help me figure what is causing this sudden vomiting. I’m now scared to go anywhere in public again.  There is just no warning.