UNITED STATES—I have been battling some sort of bug America, and it has not been fun at all. I don’t know where I caught it, but I do suspect some sort of food poisoning and it has literally knocked me out. I felt fine one minute, and then come the wee hours of Saturday morning and I found myself puking and in the restroom for hours.

I have not been this sick in almost a decade. The last time it was pretty bad because I was puking at 4 in the morning, and I had a massive presentation in my undergraduate psychology course and I just looked terrible. You know it’s bad when the professor tells you, do your best on your presentation, and when you finish, you’re free to go home. I do NOT like throwing up, vomiting or puking, whatever term you use, it is the absolute worst for me.

I hate to do it because I despise that sour or foul smell that tends to linger in the mouth. It literally drives me insane and I had to literally deal with that for about 36 hours. I was trying everything in my power to vomit because I felt once I got whatever was making me ill out of my system I would feel slightly better. It did happen, but that was after I was brushing my teeth to rid that foul smell from my mouth and brushing my tongue. Out of nowhere, I begin to puke (forgive the details) and I felt a little better. I was actually able to get like 2 hours of sleep.

Why is this important? I have not slept in the past week in any fashion. I have constantly had to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, not once, not twice, but multiple times. My biggest concern is that I’m getting dehydrated with all these fluids leaving my body. The problem is that I don’t want to eat anything. I literally think I had some chicken broth, a few noodles, but nothing else. I want to eat something hearty, but I have been so afraid, if I do, I’m going to puke it right back up and that fear of throwing up petrifies me.

Why? I have puked so much in the past week that my upper torso is so sore that it aches when I move. Someone tried to make me laugh and it hurt to laugh from my muscles being sore from puking. I literally missed work from my day job the entire weekend, and a few days after because there was absolutely no way I could go to work. This was not a cold, I was sick and it was a brutally sick, I actually contracted the norovirus. We had a family gathering I had to miss because I didn’t want to pass on whatever was making me sick to other family members because people I know have gotten sick in the past 2-3 weeks. This went on for days and to the point that I literally depleted my body of any nutrients and was becoming severely dehydrated.

The great thing is that I didn’t have a cough, runny nose or sore throat or fever, it was absolutely a hellish stomach virus. When you literally are just on the couching all day trying to sleep, but you can’t and you don’t want to eat or do anything you know you’re sick. I have tried to hydrate by drinking water, but scarcely. I had a bit more success with orange juice as that has been the one thing palatable for my body, I soon learned OJ was not the best and should have switched to Pedialyte or some sort of Gatorade or Powerade to replenish any electrolytes that I lost and I lost plenty.

After about 4 days of being sick, I drank about 2 bottles of Gatorade without a single hiccup in one sitting. Perhaps the best thing my mother could have told me because I felt like I was getting hydrated and I desperately needed it. I am hoping to have this bug fully out of my body as we enter the first new weekend of 2025. I hope I can eat something that will digest well in my body, I don’t puke and I would NOT miss not having to use the restroom for an entire week after the illness that has literally put my body almost on shutdown.