Sick...

When I see people in the hospital, and they are chewing me out for one think or another, I always try to remember that they aren't feeling their best. This hit home this last weekend. Mike Wilson, a friend of ours from Portland, came to the twin cities for his internal medicine interview. Saturday night, we went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, A taste of India. It was a wonderful meal as always, and very tasty. After dinner I went to work -I'm working the night shift. I hadn't been at work very long, 2-5 hours, when I started to have the runs. As the night progressed I started to feel more and more sick to my stomach. By morning I asked my senior resident if she wouldn't mind if I left a hour early. I could barely walk to my car with out feeling like I needed to wretch my guts out. I made it home without any events. I felt like if I could just make it home to sleep I could let this all pass and have a good day off (I get Sunday nights off). I slept for a good 4 hours or so, but then I awoke feeling like I needed to have another bowel movement. I make it to the restroom, however the previous night's dinner had found a new way to exit and I expelled my stomach's contents into the bath tub, much to Mike's dismay as he was getting ready to shower. To my surprise this caused Bryn to go into fits of giggles, as she rubbed my back and gave comforting words. Mike offered to wash his hair in the kitchen sink, as Bryn helped me wash out the tub. I spent the next 8-10 hours after that with a Home Depot bucket and my bilious emesis. Some time during that night I was finally able to keep some water down, which was good, as Bryn and I were on the edge of taking me in for IV fluids at the emergency room. I spent the next day trying to rehydrate and later that night I ate some soft food for the first time since that fateful dinner and the loss of 5 pounds. My stomach still aches from this episode, and Bryn would attest to my pathetic weak state. In my medical opinion, I would guess that this was a bacteria with a preformed toxin, due to the quick onset and duration of 36-48 hours.
On a happier note, for the moments that I wasn't gazing into the bottom of my bucket, we had 5-7 inches of new snow. I also included some of the beautiful ice formation on some of our older windows.