Sorry About All That Vomiting
by Nicole Freire

I tell you readers all sorts of things, so if you think I'm going to pass up the opportunity to tell you about my bout with the stomach flu, well, listen closely. My mom was all, "Where is your article?" and Ed kept texting me about my article, so finally I texted him back like this, "am vomiting. no article."

But I do apologize for being absent last week and making you reread my article on breastfeeding and co-sleeping. That article got lots of positive comments and was linked to a few blogs and websites that promoted such things, and one where you could buy baby slings - cute ones too. I got all weepy about my babies being no longer babies. And it prompted funny emails too, my favorite one being from my cousin, whose subject line was, "Your Breasts All Over The Internet!" which didn't even pretend to land in my spam inbox, so you can imagine the type of emails I usually get.

Having the stomach flu (such a genteel name! I think they should just go with 'uncontrollable vomiting' instead) once again exposed another beam in the framework of a good marriage. After lying in bed and shaking and shivering for two days, my body decided to skip anything else and just move on to the 'uncontrollable vomiting' part of the illness.

Remember the end of "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte? One of the best and maybe most well known lines towards the end of the book is, "Reader, I married him."

Reader, I threw up on my husband's feet. The look of horrified disgust on his face, combined with a smidgen of sympathy would have been funny if I had not immediately then vomited all over my own feet.

Ugh.

Why does vomiting have to be so awful? Why can't it be a gentle action, instead of feeling like you are trying not only to vomit the contents of your stomach but maybe your spleen and your kidneys and the tater tots you ate at the school cafeteria when you were in second grade?

Anyway, a few days of that and then it got all semi-dramatic, what with rushed car trips to the Urgent Care clinic and me stumbling into an exam room helped by my husband and hushed pronouncements from my doctor about the seriousness of dehydration and boy did we just get there right in time and lets give her gigantic bags of saline and painkillers until she stops looking so grey. Nurses came and went, fiddling with needles and squeezing the saline bags and trying to talk to me. Mostly I responded with "blargh" or sometimes "ouch", but mostly "ungh."

I also got a note from my doctor to do nothing but drink Gatorade and lie down for six more days. Did you know that Gatorade isn't called Gatorade anymore? It's just called "G". So when I finally started feeling better, I would shout at my kids from my bed, "Hey, bring Momma her G juice and a clean ashtray!" I don't smoke of course, but seriously, G? Am I also supposed to pour out a little bit on the sidewalk for my homies also struck down with the flu?

Anyway, I'm finally feeling better. And to thank my husband for not freaking out too badly about the whole vomiting on his feet incident, here is a picture that shows you the validity of Darwin's thinking and refuting Creationism.

Could they look more alike? Well, they sleep alike, that's for sure.

My first trip outside the bedroom was downtown to SB Arts, because I had heard rumors that they were carrying Edhat t-shirts for sale. Not only are they attractive, they also seem to have some sort of healing power.

Just look at the evidence!

Apparently wearing an Edhat t-shirt allows you to load the dishwasher without vomiting.

Wearing an Edhat t-shirt also brought back my appetite and made me want to cook something, something resembling food without a glass of "G" to be found.

And finally, wearing an Edhat t-shirt makes you more attractive and dogs will kiss you.

I can also attest, after four days of rigorous testing, that Edhat t-shirts are great for sleeping shirts. They also go well with lying on the couch watching "House" marathons.

And they make you look pretty too.

So instead of thinking about me vomiting and fainting in the doctor's office and knocking back large glasses of "G" juice, why don't you head downtown and get your very own Edhat shirt? They come in all sorts of lovely colors, your choice of regular or v-neck, and if you buy one, I promise, no more vomit talk.

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Nicole Freire is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara.