Exiles

I've been ill for roughly a month. It's my own fault, really. My boss, B., had a stomach flu and missed some work. When she came back in she jested that she lost seven pounds and I jested back "Haha! Breathe on me!" and I made "germs come to me" wavy motions with my arms.

That was stupid. Never do that.

It was like that one time, in Friends, when Phoebe caught a cold and it made her singing voice all husky and sexy and so she got mad at Monica when Monica stole her cold. EXCEPT NOTHING LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT ISN'T FUNNY.

So the illness waxed and waned like the phases of the moon. I was mostly okay for Christmas, but developed lymph nodes of burning golf ball size after the new year. It was just that I never had enough time to sleep and get better. I'd go to work and come home and go to bed. Poor Hawk had to do all the housework and all the cooking and I think he got a bit lonely.

This is me on Christmas Day, all saggy and baggy.

As I said to B. a week later, "I'm a MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!"

So the first weeks of the new year dragged on, the burning throat curing itself the day before I went to the doc to say "WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME FIX ME" and instead turning into a one-sided sinus infection.

NOT IMPRESSED!

Well lucky me my doctor doesn't believe in handing out antibiotics willy-nilly and thought that since my infection came on so suddenly, it might just be viral, as had been the barfing-then-coughing-then-headcold-then-throatthing. Plus I had an appointment with her later that week to have my "beauty mark" (benign lesion that was GROWING! SO GROSS) removed, so if it was indeed bacterial, I'd get the meds then.

Fine. Friday came, my imploding sinuses received the antibiotics they needed, my lesion was sliced off (lesion is such a deliciously disgusting word, non?) and mere hours after I'd downed the first antibiotic capsule, I began to feel better.

But I still couldn't get enough rest.

Partly I blame Hawk. We watched Frankenweenie on Sunday night and I cried like an idiot remembering how I once had pet birds who had died. The crying gave me a migraine. I took migraine medicine and went to bed. I feel into a deep sleep ... punctuated with vivid, movie-like dreams. Then, Hawk's construction-site snoring woke me up and kept me from falling into anything other than an unrestful dream-state for the rest of the night.

While I recognize that none of that is his fault, I still blame him in the way I blame B. for 
infecting me in the first place.

How was I supposed to know that in Frankenweenie, the dog would die at the start of the show?!

Which brings me to Monday morning, a morning which found me in pretty terrible shape, still working off the effects of the migraine medicine and an unusually upset stomach that I'd thought was from drinking too-cold water after my too-warm bath on Sunday afternoon.

I was shaky and exhausted, but had a deadline at work so I stumbled on over.

My stomach refused to feel better, even after drinking some fizzy water. Even after googling foods that might improve an upset tummy and eating the closest thing to said food I could find at Sunterra.

Early afternoon found me in the washroom ralphing.

I was not alone in the washroom, either. Bent double as I was headed into the stall, I recognized B.'s shoes. "This is happening," thought I, with a trace of humour. I began heaving.

You see, Monday marked the second time my boss has had the unequaled pleasure of experiencing me woofing my cookies. The first time, probably more than a year ago now, didn't even happen in the washroom.

FLASHBACK

I'd accompanied Magpie on a trip for lunch, but once we'd reached Press'd, I realized the churning in my stomach wasn't due to hunger. (I don't upchuck often, so sometimes, I don't recognize its warning signs.) After Magpie had purchased her lunch, and I had decided not to, I paused by a trash can to level a dry heave at it. Magpie begged me not to throw up in a garbage can in City Centre Mall like a dirty hobo, and I acquiesced, but the trip back to the office was not a pleasant one for me as I clutched at my stomach dramatically and broke a sweat. At least I didn't heave any more.

Until the elevator, that is, where I found the acceleration extraordinarily uncomfortable, leaving me with no choice but to constantly burp obnoxiously. And ominously. Magpie was both grossed out and concerned.

Once the doors opened, I bolted. I bolted for the washroom because I knew something was coming.

I didn't make it. As I passed B., who was exiting the washroom, I did it. I did the unthinkable. I threw up into my hand.

I managed to hold the vomit in my hand and mouth until I reached the toilet and finished my business.

It was pretty horrible but B. was cool about it. I found her after and said "I think I should go home," and she said "Yes I think you should," as if nothing ever happened.

Back to Monday. Once I was finished and had collapsed against the wall, muttering the Lord's name vainly under my breath, I heard B. say "Rebecca?"

I didn't have the energy to be mortified, so I just said, "Yes?" and wiped off the toilet seat and sort of stood up and flushed and stuff. B. said "I want you to go home," and my reply was something like "I think I was going to."

I think I was going to? I was SO out of it.

My writerly instincts are dying to describe to you in vivid details the rainbow beauty of what I saw in the toilet yesterday as it came hurling out of my mouth,(over and over and over) but I doubt your patience will extend so far, gentle reader. Instead, I will catalog for you Monday's Menu, and let your imagination do my work; or, for those who hurl when others do, perhaps you will choose to skip reading the menu, for delicacy's sake.

B. left the washroom ahead of me so I could rinse my mouth out. We have automatic taps, and I had to rinse with hot water. It was super gross. Pardon the lack of vocabulary, but super gross is the best way to describe it.

I returned to my office and B. was discussing moving the deadline forward with Sandcat.

Then she told me to get home and she didn't want to see me back before Wednesday. I tried to protest but she would have nothing of it.

I was in exile.

It was so worth it.