Sick

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at a press conference of a soon to be retired MP when the first stirrings happened.

Deep down in the recesses of my gut things began to get a bit squirelly. You might know the feeling. It's when you think your OK but deep down somewhere inside you have this suspicion there's a little demon that's about to fuck you up.

The longer the press conference went, the worse I felt. And, boy, did it go on. For nigh on 50 minutes we were treated to some of the finer points of law on legislation around property rights and ownership. Half an hour in and I really wasn't feeling too good. 10 minutes later I was feeling even more rotten and lurking in the back of my mind was the nagging suspicion I really was about to throw up. Not something you want to do at the final press conference of a MP who's had a three decade political career.

So as the presser dragged on I became increasingly scratchy. And I feel I really should apologise to my colleagues who were at the event too. My apparent shortness of temper was nothing to do do with the continuing questions. It was the fact I really wanted to get the hell out of there before something truly dreadful happened.


Sure enough just minutes after the event was over I was hunched over a toilet emptying the very depths of my stomach. Much to the discomfort and dismay of the person that happened to walk into the bathroom halfway through.

And that's pretty much been the pattern for most of last night. Horrendous projectile vomiting on the hour every hour. Feeling like my guts have been forcibly wrenched from my insides on a long length of dirty rope and wondering where the hell it was all coming from. Surely after the third or fourth spew there can be nothing left to lose? But no it seems stomachs are like the Tardis - they can fit more on the inside than you'd ever suspect.

Every muscle from my thighs to my throat have had the most rigorous workout they've had in ages. Never mind the ab-master - if you want to tone your abdominals try chowing down on raw chicken and let the salmonella do the rest. I swear to God the crunchies you do when dry retching are far more intense than anything you can achieve in a gym.

Still, as bad as last night was, it pales in comparison to this experience. I reckon I've got off lucky.

Bus Trips From Hell

A word to the wise from one who knows.

If you're about to take a 12 hour bus trip and you're feeling a little peaky then think long and hard about delaying your journey.

Do not do what I did in Turkey last month. While eating dinner an hour before an 800 km trip from Istanbul to Goreme I started feeling slightly nauseous. Not wanting to be a big girls blouse and go through the hassle of rebooking bus tickets I decided I'd tough it out. After all how bad could it be??

As it turned out - very.

An hour into the trip I developed the worst case of food poisoning I have ever had in my entire life. Frantic gesticulation to the bus attendant saw paper towels delivered. Even more frantic miming of being sick finally got what I was after - a bag to be sick in. And only just in time too as I was literally handed said plastic bag at the exact moment my stomach decided it was time to blow the ballast. Thus began the 12 most miserable hours of my life.

Imagine, if you will, sitting in a superheated bus (for some reason Turkish buses are kept at about 30 degrees) while your stomach is tying itself in knots and you feel as if your intestines are trying to crawl up your throat.

Then, as you sit there in abject misery dry retching because there's literally nothing left to come up, you feel a deadly twinge in an area located just below your stomach and grimly realise that you're about to be running at both ends!!

Dear God please kill me now.

All I can say is I'm truly thankful that intercity buses in Turkey do make frequent rest stops. If it were not for them I believe - no know - an already gruesome situation would have been far worse.

And far messier.

I do have an extreme amount of sympathy for my fellow passengers. Especially the poor woman behind me who ended up being sick in sympathy, (the trend of one person chucking setting off others holds true) and the endangered soul in front of me who may have got a bit of carrot splatter from my first outburst. To those who suffered while I spewed I heartily apologise.

Actually there was a weird sort of symmetry to the whole occasion. You see the last time I was really ill from food poisoning prior to this occasion was on a bus, in Turkey, travelling to Goreme, exactly 11 years previously.

Spooky.

Suffice it to say I won't be doing that trip again ... ever.