Vacation Recap: Tuesday - Atlanta, Day 1!

Picture this: It's about 5 am and you wake up because your stomach HURTS. You try to ignore it and go back to sleep. You toss and turn and finally, at about 6:30 in the morning, you realize you can't sleep due to the stomach pain. You get up and take a couple of Tums and try to be very still in hopes that the pain will subside. Your dad wakes up and goes to get you a Coke. Nothing seems to be helping. And then, it hits you, you run to the bathroom and receive confirmation. You have food poisoning (or possibly a stomach virus).

I've had food poisoning 2 other times in my life. How I usually determine it's a food problem and not a virus is a) getting sick from food is usually more intense and b) if no one else that I'm around gets it. Granted, several people could eat the same contaminated food and all get sick, but if several people take turns getting sick, I tend to think it's a virus. 

Regardless, no one I saw last week got sick, except me. And it was bad. Could not even keep liquids down kind of bad. And I was in a car. For hours at a time. So insanely unpleasant. I littered the Northwest Florida roadside with lots of vomit-y presents. We went to a Publix and bought some anti-nausea medication. Threw that up. One time didn't make it out of the car and threw up all over myself and the car. My poor parents. I decided the best course of action was to not eat (and to drink very little) all day. In the late afternoon I felt slightly better and decided to try some lemon-lime Powerade and animal crackers. Bad idea. They did not stay with me long. 

We got into Atlanta in the late afternoon and went directly to AJ's house. Lucky her. It was great to see her and the long-awaited Cali, but I just felt terrible and could not stop throwing up. Basically, I threw up from the time I got up in the morning, until the time I went to sleep that night. I was literally in bed, trying to fall asleep at around 11 pm, when I had to run to the bathroom to throw up the approximately 3 bites of soup I had attempted to eat for dinner. 

Cali and her signature move: Showing you a shoe!

Sorry if this is too much information, but I feel I must be honest about my experience. This sickness greatly colored the rest of my vacation. Which sort of made me angry. I had been looking forward to this vacation for months. After a very busy and hectic summer of weddings, I wanted nothing more than to relax, read books, and eat lots of yummy foods. Eating is pretty much my favorite part of vacationing - lots of fun new restaurants, regional cuisine, and candy from gas stations! 

But that was not to be the case on this vacation. On Tuesday, I essentially didn't eat and for the rest of the vacation my appetite was not normal. It was sad. BUT I tried to stay positive, make the most out of it, and enjoy it as much as I could. I didn't have much energy to feel too disappointed because I just wanted to feel better. Sickness has a way of putting priorities in their right order. 

My brother sent me this picture of Henry, saying how sorry Henry was to hear I was sick. It did make me feel better. 

I fell asleep Tuesday night begging God to heal my digestive system so that I could eat fun stuff with AJ the next day...