Monday Already?

My "Jess weekend" flew by way too quickly, and before I knew it, Jerry's hungover self was home. I did have a nice weekend though with the appropriate mixture of alone time and friend time, and while it's always nice to have the house to myself, it's also nice to have Jerry home.

Anyhoo, the weekend is over, and that means it's back to work today (hi-ho, hi-ho). Unfortunately, this also means I broke a 6-day-no-puke streak this morning by barfing here at school. It's kind of amazing how quickly the vomit can strike me down, but however seemingly random, I have detected a pattern. The stages are as follows:

• Sudden stomach distress. This is hard to describe in very thorough or telling detail. The stomach simply does not feel right.
• Following this tummy distress is the "urp urge." This is where I feel my stomach contract like it's gonna heave, and I experience a wave of nausea. At this point, I have to stop what I'm doing and I usually do one of two things: put my hand on my tummy (because outside reassurance might help settle the little fella) or put my hands to my mouth.
• Then, there's the saliva. I don't know about you, but for me, right before I puke, my mouth gets all saliva-y. I usually try to take deep breaths at this point and swallow slowly.
• The "urp urge" increases and I have an actual moment where I think I'm gonna hurl right then and there. At this point, I know I must quickly get to a toilet.
• To the bathroom I go!

Thankfully, the nature of this vomiting means that I don't have to huddle near the toilet for a few moments before anything happens, so there's never that period of time spent hugging the porcelain in puke-limbo. By the time I reach the toilet, my stomach has pushed the "eject" button and there's no time for contemplation. So at least there's very little anticipation or agony of will-I-or-won't-I throw up.

Since the barf-isode of this morning, I have felt fine. In fact, right after I puked, I felt just dandy. And on the whole, the nausea has decreased in both severity and occurrence in the past few weeks, and I have only puked about 4 or 5 times since starting back to classes on January 5th. So, as I begin to move out of the first trimester (this is week 12 -- so I'm getting ready to say "auf weidersehen" to the first 3 months), hopefully the pattern of feel-good days begins to overshadow the pattern of feel-like-crap days.

As a side note to this discussion of my less than pleasant morning sickness, I was talking to my mother a few weeks ago, trying to complain to her about not feeling good, and she said, "Well, just remember, no one dies of morning sickness."

Not true, Mom.

Women can die of a condition called Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which is essentially excessive vomiting due to pregnancy in which the woman becomes so malnourished and dehydrated that her vital systems shut down and she dies. In modern, developed countries, this almost never happens anymore because doctors either prescribe medication or hospitalize women who suffer from such extreme sickness, but in some third world countries and in eras past, women do and did die of this. In fact, the author Charlotte Bronte (who wrote "Jane Eyre") died of it.

I have, by no means, an "extreme case" of morning sickness. I just have the sort of symptoms that more than half of pregnant women suffer from, and at least it doesn't keep me from regular life. It's just uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient.

Alrighty, I guess I've talked my fill about barf today, so I'd best be off! I plan to run this evening before bowling; we're still enjoying some cooler weather here so the run should be enjoyable.