if it hadn't been for cotton-eyed joe, i'd have been married a long time ago. where did you come from? where did you go? where did you come from, cotton-eyed joe?

does anyone else remember this song? yeah? well does anyone else find themselves walking down the hallways at work mumbling the words to herself? yeah, cause i do. there is just something so wrong about that.

okay, well, i do have a story to tell, but i'm not sure you wanna hear it. it's not a fun story. but seeing as all this crap is happening to squeeks and fu, i figure i better try to shoulder my share of the poor-luck burden. so here's my tale. wednesday morning around 3am, i sit bolt upright in bed. i only know that i sat up by the sensation in my muslces as i literally could not sense which way was up or down, left or right. the room was spinning violently. i'm not sure how to give you an accurate picture of this hell i was in. i felt very much like i would had i downed a good-sized bottle of tequila in about thirty minutes. (js, you should know something about this, eh? ;)) it effing SUCKED. i am clearly going to yak everywhere, but i am also completely incapable of getting myself to an appropriate yakking arena, so i yell, scaring my poor hubby out of a deep sleep, "help me get to the bathroom!!!" success and no puke on the carpet.

i spent the next five-and-a-half hours face down in the toilet. now, there is absolutely no food in my stomach, so this is a dry-heave festival. the very best, yes. jerm tells me he now has nightmares about the sounds i was making that night. if you've ever experienced the dry-heave phenomenon, you might be familiar with both the sounds and the feeling. SUCKTASTIC.

and it gets worse.

a big part of the problem was the fact that i could not rest in between stomach surges. if i moved my head too much to one side or the other, i.e. tried to rest it on the counter, or if i godforbid tried to close my eyes, said violent spinning came back with a big hard pissed off billy club of a vengance. and the puking would recommence.

by about 830, we'd had enough, and jerm carted me off to the hospital. this was a true test of mind over stomach. being in the car can make me sick on the best of days. and on this, my worst of days ... well, anyway, i managed to maintain order until we reached the hospital. walking in, people were really staring at me. i'm sure i looked lovely. i think they must have thought i would not be leaving there alive. at times, i wondered myself.

so now it's time for the nurses to stick needles in my sick body until they can find a vein. if you're not familiar with the symptoms of dehydration, well, it can make your veins a bit hard to stab. so i got three nasty jabs before she hit bloody paydirt. four hours, one big bag of sugar water, and one large lovely dose of zofran later, i felt almost good enough to die.

i'm better today. obviously. but i'm still afraid to go to sleep. i keep thinking i'll wake up spinning again. i swear, i've puked more since i've stopped drinking, that i really have to consider whether i should take it up again. okay, okay, not really. i wouldn't do that to ya, jabba. ;)