The Cons
Did you know that you can pull a muscle in your stomach while vomiting?
You probably did know that. But I didn't, and now my side hurts. This is what I get for being out of shape: a puking injury.
I never threw up before I got pregnant with Westley. I puked a couple times in college from (what else?) ingesting too many poisonous recreational beverages in rapid succession. But before Westley was born, I think I was seven or eight the last time I threw up due to illness. And interestingly (interesting to me, anyway) I only started throwing up while pregnant after Rob told his parents. So maybe this is something I can hold against my in-laws.
It seems like every time I get sick now--which is way too often--there's nausea and vomiting involved. I was rarely sick before I had a child, but I've been sick five times since. Four with vomiting. I'm starting to wonder if pregnancy did something to screw with my immune system, the same way it moved my organs around. And those early months certainly did wonders in jump-starting my gag-reflex. In high school, I always wanted to be able to make myself vomit and never could. Not even a toothbrush handle did the trick. Now, just brushing my teeth makes me gag. Flossing is worse, especially behind my back teeth. And I can forget about drinking anything thicker than full-fat soy milk easily.
So, naturally, as I sit here with the queasiness subsiding and my symptoms relocating from my stomach to my intestines, I find myself facing medication in the form of gelatinous pink liquid. Mmm.
The Pros
I've lost seven pounds. My face looks really skinny, which never happens. I should develop a weight-loss program that encourages contracting stomach bugs on a regular basis. The maintenance routine would involve lots of brown rice and Kaopectate.
Peppermint-flavored Kaopectate is waaaay tastier than vanilla-flavored Kaopectate, which is weird to me. I think this is the only example of a product for which I prefer the mint option to the non-mint. My toothpaste is "orange-mango" flavor. Before that, it was apricot. I always like it when I discover that my likes and dislikes aren't the hard-and-fast rules I thought they were.
It's also nice to know that when I'm allowed to sit around and do nothing else for a day-and-a-half (thanks, honey), I can read a couple of books from start to finish.
English-major mojo. Yeah, I've still got it.
