Final night

Final night
Originally uploaded by girl_of_bats.

At about 4pm on Monday I started to feel really not very well at all. We left the Trafford Centre and headed back to the hotel, where I drank plenty of water and went to sleep. On waking, I felt really queasy. Usually that just means I'm dizzy, but as per usual I went to sit in the bathroom, just in case I threw up a mouthful of water, as I sometimes do when I'm really dizzy.

It wasn't just a mouthful of water. It was my lunch. I recognised it.

Steve, bless him, came running through and helped hold back my hair and managed not to be sick himself.

One of the things about ME, one of the primary things you might say, is an extreme lack of energy. Throwing up takes a lot of energy. By this point, I had pins and needles in my hands and feet and I felt like I was made out of overcooked spaghetti.

Up came my starter, which luckily had been soup so it wasn't quite as distressing as the main course.

By this point I was shivering and cramping like nobody's business. Steve did a really good job of looking after me, reassuring me the whole time, helping me stay upright over the loo while I was vomiting because I wasn't capable of balancing and so on.

I had to lie on the floor of the bathroom for a while, then we thought I was safe to transfer back to the bed.

Wrong.

By this point I was throwing up just bile and water - I couldn't even keep a mouthful of plain water down for god's sake. I also desperately needed some painkillers, but I couldn't have any painkillers either, because I wouldn't have been able to keep them down - they'd have just come straight back up.

We phoned NHS Direct to ask if they had any ideas about how to stop me throwing up, but the words "chocolate teapot" come to mind. First of all, they were getting confused because a lot of symptoms - dizziness, headache, weakness and so on - are symptoms I have anyway due to the ME. The nurse said "I'll have to do some checking on ME, I'll call you back." That took about an hour. We think they were trying to decide whether I needed hospitalisation or not.

"No, we just want some advice about how to control my vomiting, because I have to take medication for my ME symptoms."
"Oh, you can take your medication, that's not a problem."
"But I can't even keep water down, I just vomit my tablets straight back up again."

I mean, what isn't understandable about that?

Eventually, while I was throwing up again, Steve managed to get some sense out of them. We should give me *nothing* to swallow, not even water, until I had gone an hour without vomiting, and then try me on very small, infrequent sips of water to see how it went. If I managed that okay then I could try a small piece of plain bread, and then see about tablets, but basically we were looking at toughing it out.

Steve sat up most of the night keeping an eye on me. By about 3am I had come back to the bed and fallen asleep. I awoke at 6, thankfully he was asleep, and I started with the little bits of water which seemed to stay down okay. I was horribly sore, weak, dizzy and queasy, but not vomitty. No. I'd swapped ends. :(

I managed the little bits of bread. I managed my tablets. We checked out of the hotel ok. It was a bit touch and go for the drive home, though...

Wednesday today and feeling a lot better. I may even have breakfast, when Steve wakes up.

*checks clock*

Make that lunch.