Holidays 2024, Part VI: The Blackest of Fridays

Warning: there is some graphic and/or likely triggering content in the below post for those of you who have weak stomachs. If you really want to know some intimate details about sickness, feel free to keep reading. If you don't, might be best for you to skip this one, m'kay?

So on the morning of Black Friday, I woke up somewhat normally. Well, normal for me anyway.

The plans for the day -- originally, anyway -- were for me to get some chores done around the house. Washing the bedsheets and blankets, getting the Christmas cards into the mail, and eating leftover fake turkey on two ciabatta rolls I had specifically saved for it while watching the Chiefs game. Daisy would be at the zoo with the kids and it would be a nice, restful day for me. Once she arrived home, our plans were to go to the local fish store (for live fish, not for eating fish) and pick up a few shrimp for our fishtank -- Daisy recently cleaned out the fishtank, we got some plants for it a few nights ago, and she wanted to get some pretty little shrimp and another betta for it -- since Ghost, our last betta, died within six months. I was fine with that. I like having the fishtank set up with little animals swimming around in it. 

So, that was the plan. Or so I thought.

Before we'd left the parents' house on Thanksgiving night, Daisy's sister had mentioned that they wanted to head out for the zoo around 10:30 in the morning. It was also her oldest son's/our oldest nephew's 16th birthday, so it was a celebratory thing for him of sorts. 

I thought that leaving for the zoo at 10:30 -- on Black Friday -- was a very bad idea. Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo is gigantic. It is the size of a small city. While all of us have been to the zoo many times before (over the course of the past decade, I've been there no less than five times -- one of those times at night for the Christmas lights display they put up), you don't leave for the zoo in mid-morning, you leave for the zoo at dawn. Otherwise, you'll have to park quite literally half a mile away from the front gates, you can hit a few of the big attractions and then you'll have to turn around and come home because yes, the zoo is that large. It took me at least three separate visits over the course of multiple years to see everything I wanted to see at the zoo. 

Not to mention, well, it was cold AF -- the temperature when I got up yesterday morning was 13 degrees (the coldest temperature of the season thus far in Omaha) with a windchill of zero. Most of the zoo's big attractions are indoors of course, but again, it's small-city-sized and there's no way to avoid walking miles in the cold when you're there to get from point A to points B, C, and D. I think my record at the zoo the last time we went there during the day was something like seven miles walked -- over the course of a few hours. That day I was fighting off a summer flu, too. This will be important later. 

But, I digress.

Daisy said sure, 10:30 was fine or something like that and didn't think much else about it. She set her alarm for 9 or so, in order to be able to get up and get some food in her and get ready. She put the responsibility of handling the toilet guys on me, and I was fine with that.

I may not have mentioned that before, so little side note -- our downstairs toilet was making weird sounds, like it was never completely turning off. Hissing quietly even after it was full, etc. It wasn't leaking or anything, but over the course of the past year or so it's gotten a little louder and more forceful. Daisy and I know nothing about plumbing, and the louder and more forceful it got the more Daisy mentioned that she wanted to open a ticket on it with our home warranty people to get a plumber to come out and fix it. I was fine with that; whatever, preventative maintenance I suppose. It is what it is. 

So, she did, and that appointment was set for 7am to 1pm on Black Friday. 

I mean...I was home, I was going to be home, it didn't really matter to me when they came to do it. So I told her that was fine.

The guys showed up around 10, looked at it briefly, said they needed to go to Home Depot to get a part, as it was a really simple fix, and left to go get said part. I immediately had the horrifying thought that oh fuck, we just sent these guys to Home Depot at 10am on Black Friday, which I told them when they returned.

"Oh, we've been there four times already this morning."

Anyway. 

Toilet was quickly fixed -- it needed a new valve -- and they were on their way, and Daisy was getting ready to leave to get over to the parents, when she found out that her sister had just put a cake in the oven for our nephew's birthday -- fifteen minutes or so before they were supposed to be leaving for the zoo.

I...yeah. Daisy has the patience of a saint, because I would've been very frustrated and angry. Daisy was not at all upset. I get that it's the kid's birthday, but plan the fuck ahead please. Bake the cake once you're home for the night, not when everyone else in the family is on a set schedule for the day. 

"So," Daisy asked, "[Fish store] opens at noon. It's going to take 40 minutes to bake the cake and then to take it out and let it cool so it can be frosted. Do you just want to go there now and get the shrimp so we don't have to do it later?"

"Sure," I said. "Let me get dressed."

So here's where the fun part comes in. Throughout all of this, the longer I'm awake and moving around for the day, the worse I feel. I am having bad gas, I am having very foul burps that won't stop and smell like nothing I've ever smelled, and my guts are staging a revolt. I've used the bathroom twice but have not felt any better -- the nausea has persisted pretty strongly throughout the entire morning. I figured oh, I ate a lot of different food yesterday that my body isn't used to, so this is how it's trying to process and digest it. I'm a diabetic and on Trulicity, and I don't generally eat a lot anymore. Trulicity in itself makes me digest things more slowly and isn't exactly great for my guts anyhow.

Well, so I thought.

The fish store is across town; it's in the same plaza where our old gym used to be. There is apparently a very large, very enthusiastic fish community in Omaha -- like people who want fish and sometimes other exotic aquatic creatures -- as pets. It is a niche market for sure, but holy hell is it apparently a profitable one. The fish store advertised a sale for Black Friday -- it wasn't anything remarkable I don't think, like 25% off a lot of stuff, including all of their "livestock."

Another aside -- calling fish, shrimp, and anything else that lives in the water "livestock" absolutely rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, 25% off was enough to get all of the city's fish people crawling out of the woodwork and there was a line to get into the door as soon as the store opened at 12.

We got five little blue shrimp and a bag of food for them, and it came out to around $40 or so. As the worker was there bagging them up, Daisy mentioned that she wanted to get a betta to live in there with them, but we needed to be able to pick out the right one.

His face fell. "With shrimp? They'll become betta food."

Apparently, some bettas can coexist with shrimp, and others (read: most of them) can't. They quickly get eaten. Female bettas have a much lower chance of eating all the shrimp, but it's not a zero chance. We got the shrimp because they clean the tank and they breed like crazy, so we could have a thriving colony of shrimp to help keep the tank clean for our new fish. Apparently, the only way to keep a shrimp colony going with a betta, and to minimize loss, is for there to be a lot of them so that when/if a few get eaten by the betta, it's not noticeable. 

The wife, a vegan and not exactly a fan of the idea of our pets getting eaten by our other pets, was not exactly thrilled with this idea.

So, I guess we're going to be doing some more research on fish that will work with the tank and water/plants we have, but aren't going to eat the shrimp (or at least not eat as many of the shrimp).

The shrimp themselves are pretty tiny, less than a centimeter long each, and are a brilliant cobalt blue. I don't know the name of the breed or anything, but they're very pretty. Still, they're shrimp and it's not like they're really "pets" you can get to interact with you or get them excited for food like you do with bettas or other fish. 

Anyway. Moving onward.

By the time we left the fish store, my guts were in serious havoc. This continued to worsen as we ventured back home, and it felt somehow different than my normal upset stomach. I again used the bathroom and felt like that wasn't enough, and once again collapsed in my chair for a bit as Daisy was getting ready to go over and finally go to the zoo with her sister and kids. I would venture that this was around...oh, a little after 1pm or so.

So, I'll recap a bit and set the stage for what is about to come. Throughout the day so far, I had:

1. Slept with a sour stomach

2. Gotten up and helped take care of the plumbing guys

3. Done some minor Black Friday shopping (I'll cover this below, it was not mentioned above)

4. Gone out, in the cold, to spend $40 on live shrimp

I had eaten nothing for the day yet -- the thought of food made me even more ill. I had drank about 1/4 bottle of water and about half of a zero sugar Monster Ultra. 

And, on top of everything else, as we arrived home from the fish store, it began snowing. Heavily. Big white flakes. It had been flurrying while we were out, but it was now noteworthy. As it did last year, the snow waited until after Thanksgiving to start in Omaha. 

Daisy was still getting ready when I felt the need to go to the bathroom again. I was in there on the toilet when she told me, through the door, that she loved me and she'd be back later in the afternoon. 

It was about this time when I felt my mouth fill with saliva and my stomach wrenched in a way it hadn't before, and the scary thought of oh my god, I'm about to vomit flashed across my mind. I was barely able to grab the bathroom trash can in time, and I unleashed the fury.

All of this happened within the span of about 20 seconds -- Daisy was likely not even halfway down the stairs.

"Are you okay?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said. "I'm just puking." 

"I know, I heard. Do you need me to stay?" she asked. "Are you going to be okay?"

"No," I said, "go. I'll be fine. I'm just throwing up. Just feeling sick. It'll pass."

I did not want to deprive her of the zoo experience with the family. Me being sick wasn't a big deal; I feel sick to my stomach all the time.

After another five minutes or so, at the point where I was sure I would be done, I opened the door to find her standing at the bottom of the stairs looking very concerned. I tied up the garbage bag from the trash can in the bathroom and she dropped it in the dumpster on the way out. She suggested I get one of the large popcorn bowls I do my tie-dyeing in and to keep it close to me as a puke bucket. I again assured her she was fine to go, I would deal. 

I heard her leave; kitchen door close, garage door up, car fire up, garage door back down. It's not hard to hear in this house unless there's a lot of background noise. There was not background noise in my silent bedroom office in my chair.

I was coated in sweat. I don't vomit; generally I have a pretty iron stomach in most scenarios. The last time I puked was when I had my kidney stone a couple of years ago, and that was from pain and nausea not in my guts, but from when the stone was moving. 

I felt okay for about half an hour or so. I didn't know if it was over, so to speak, but I wasn't feeling sick, just really shaky and weak. 

This. Did not last long. 

The second bout was even more violent than the first. This time I took the bowl to the bathroom with me. I call, ahem, vomiting from both ends the "surf and turf," if you will. Best way to describe it without being too gross about it, plus it's an amusing term. 

At the end of the second bout, it felt like I was fading in and out of consciousness for very brief moments -- less than a second each time, etc. I was feeling really, really bad. I looked down into the bowl and I could see remnants of Thanksgiving dinner, which I had eaten a full 24 hours before this point -- pieces of corn, carrot, mushrooms, and lentils (an ingredient in the vegan turkey loaf) all clearly visible and undigested. All of that -- all of it -- had been sitting in my stomach for an entire day? A full DAY? A full day with other foods eaten since then -- I ate some potato chips and some Combos after returning home on Thursday night -- and it's still in there? That was really concerning to me.

I phoned Daisy from the bathroom. I didn't know what else to do. I was really shaky, covered in sweat, and was very much feeling like I might faint. She had just arrived at the parents' to go to the zoo. She immediately asked if I needed her to come home and I said yes. I assume she just dropped off the zoo pass for the kids, got back in the car, and sped home -- because she was here in less than fifteen minutes.

In that span of time it happened twice more. I texted her that this was 100% stomach flu or food poisoning, because nothing like this happens to me and I hadn't been this sick for a long, long time. 

When she got home, I was dazed, sweaty, and out of it, and was trying to get the Roku on my office TV to work correctly so that I could stream the Chiefs game -- which was only being shown on Amazon Prime. She immediately brought me up a couple bottles of Gatorade/Powerade (I always keep the zero sugar stuff in the house, at least one or two bottles, because I sometimes crave it) and made me a giant water bottle of Liquid IV. She then sat with me for a bit to make sure I was okay.

I told her how sorry I was that I had to call her back, and that I thought I was going to pass out/faint. She asked me if I had any chest pain or pain shooting down my arm or anything like that, as that would be signs of a heart attack.

"Nope, just the guts," I said.

Through it all, Daisy was very sweet and very kind and understanding. She immediately went into nurse mode and just wanted to take care of me. In the midst of conversation, I had to get up and run back to the bathroom because it was going to happen again, and it did.

Overall, I had...ahem...the surf and turf five times over the course of an hour or two. Daisy was here for the first one and the last one, but missed the three in-between. Time blends together and I wasn't exactly keeping an eye on my watch. My heart rate was fine, everything else seemed normal, I was just really sick.

After the last one, I drank most of one of the bottles of Gatorade, which burned like hell -- the stomach acid had ripped up my throat. The Liquid IV went down more smoothly. I was still weak and could barely move. 

But, thankfully, that was the end of it. Throughout the evening, I gradually approached normality again. I was still really shaky and weak, but I had no more surf and turf. I finished the Gatorade and Liquid IV and even drank the rest of the Monster and bottle of water from the morning hours to try to rehydrate myself. I took my evening pills to no ill effects. I went to the bathroom normally at least twice. 

It was at this time where Daisy let me know she planned to go back over to the parents' after all of them had returned from the zoo -- which apparently closed at 4pm. Four in the afternoon? I'm pretty sure I've been at the zoo later than that, but apparently that's their winter hours. 

So to recap, even if she'd gotten to go do the zoo thing with them, it would've been about two hours maximum and then the zoo staff would've said "okay, we're closing now, get the fuck out." Really?

Anyway.

By the end of the Chiefs game, I was feeling mostly normal. I got up and resumed some of the chores I'd started that morning -- laundry, washing the bed, etc. Daisy went over to the parents' again in the evening and I took a nap for several hours while she did that.

Yesterday was spent mostly in recovery mode, as her sister's family went back home to Denver in the morning hours.

I've been mostly fine since. I'm still weak, I'm still sort of dizzy, and I believe I'm now coming down with some other sort of sickness -- I have a sore throat and a lot of post-nasal drip that is really not great, and for a while this morning I was sure I had a fever. All of my muscles and joints hurt from the really intense puking, and I apparently burst a blood vessel under my tongue while vomiting as I have a big purple spot there now under the skin.

In short, I'm not at 100%. I'm nowhere near 100%. I feel like I've been hit by a truck, quite honestly. 

Annnnd, of course, Daisy is now also sick with the same post-Thanksgiving crud I have. It started roughly around the same time. And adding to all of this, when I thermometer'd myself earlier...I confirmed that I am running a fever. This was after, a few hours after, taking sinus/pain/congestion medication (which includes fever-reducing acetaminophen) to try to clear this stuff out. 

This really just isn't my week, is it?

Daisy and I are staying home; we don't have the energy to go out, and we don't want to risk getting anyone else sick anyway -- especially if this is Covid or something like that. We're going to take Covid tests tomorrow, especially if either of us are feeling worse. Neither of us got flu or Covid boosters this fall, though we meant to set that up and do it multiple times. We just never got around to it. Well, we now may end up paying the price for that. I am also lucky that I took tonight (Sunday) off work for what I called "recovery time" as it now seems that I'll legit be using it for exactly that purpose. There's no more time I can feasibly take off, though -- if I have Covid or the flu or whatever, I'll be working through it; I do not and will not have any more PTO to burn for the rest of the year unless I want to sacrifice days from my birthday/Christmas vacation, which I do not. 

I'll live. It may suck for awhile, but I'll live. I mean, hopefully.

I mentioned above that I did some Black Friday shopping, and I did -- well, I should say that I've continued to do it here and there all weekend long. None of the things were big-ticket items, though; I didn't want or need any of those things and truthfully I don't think a lot of them are really on "sale" for Black Friday. What I got was carefully selected and curated, and I made sure all of it was far cheaper than it normally would be. So, here's the list:

• Ghost's latest record, Rite Here, Rite Now and their corresponding tour t-shirt ($28 total)
• A second Ghost shirt that was on Black Friday sale for $12
• A pair of zero-drop "barefoot shoes" that had been on my Amazon wishlist for approximately a year, now on sale for $30 instead of $50
• Cat treats, Tim Horton's K-Cups (in two different varieties), and more purple hair dye -- all substantially cheaper than normal thanks to Black Friday
• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection for my Switch -- yes, I have it on the PS4, but I got the digital version for my Switch Lite. I'd been planning to do this for awhile, actually ($30).
• A king-size faux fur blanket for 40% off ($30)
• A Chappell Roan t-shirt ($20ish)
• A Stevie Nicks t-shirt ($20ish)
• A Star Trek Captain Picard ugly Christmas sweater, in my size, for $20
• A wool blend peacoat in wine red (read: dark maroon), in my size, for $20

And three things I can't write about here as they're tangentially related to Christmas and I don't want to spoil any surprises for Daisy.

There were other things I wanted, of course, but I decided it best for me to stop while I was ahead. After all, I finished Christmas shopping for Daisy months ago, I don't have anything else I need to purchase for anyone else; the vast majority of the stuff mentioned above was for me and me alone -- which makes me feel sort of selfish as we head into the holidays. But, I don't splurge on things for just me very often. 

So, here we are; the first set of holiday times for the year have ended, and we now enter the headlong rush towards my birthday, Christmas, and the New Year. Man, I can't wait for this truly awful year to end.