My lovely experience with gastroenteritis

So as some of you (read: the two of you who may occasionally browse through my blog in the hopes that I've written something worth reading...sorry to let you down yet again) may know, I spent the past week in the firm uncomfortable grasps of the viral infection best known as gastroenteritis.

For those of you who have never heard of this terrible affliction, gastroenteritis is the inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, stomach, and the small intestine. It is usually caused by certain viruses, and less often by bacteria (like Salmonella, Shigella, Staphylococcus, Campylobacter jejuni, Clostridium, Escherichia coli, Yersinia, etc.) or their toxins, parasites, etc. Worldwide, inadequate treatment of gastroenteritis kills 5 to 8 million people per year. That's approximately 5-8 times more people than HIV annually. To put it simply, this is serious shit.

The really serious part about this is that I'm almost positive that George Lucas and his cinematic shithouse of horror Indiana Jones 4 gave me this. There's no other possible explanation aside from the movie was just so terrible, I literally got sick for a week and shat myself in a hospital emergency room. I couldn't eat for about four days without vomiting it right back up, and I owe this all to George Lucas's desire to make more shitty prequels and sequels than plot twists in a single episode of LOST.

Here's a list of the fun things you can do while trying to get over gastroenteritis:

• Have diarrhea 10-15 times a day. Not the semi-chunky kind either, I mean like a definite 7 on the Bristol Stool Chart (btw, LOL..."Entirely Liquid")
• Think about all the food you really want to eat, and then vomit because you're sick as shit and couldn't keep it down if you chased it with cement
• Watch lots of boring repetitive tv that sucks
  
• Not have sex with your girlfriend because you're afraid you'd accidentally shit on her (unless, of course, you both consent to, acknowledge, and accept that as being a possible outcome of intercourse and go about it anyways)
  
• Take lots of off-the-shelf medication to keep your temperature under 102 F
• Wake up halfway through the night because you think you've pissed the bed, only to realize it's just copious amounts of sweat
• Wake up 5-10 times during the night because you think you're going to shit the bed, only to realize you only had to shit one of those times
• Lay around on a couch and smell bad because showers feel weird
  
• Drink lots and lots and lots and lots of fluid. So much fluid you feel like you're going to drown
• Wish you were dead
• Curse the name of George Lucas and research the Lucasfilm facilities at One Letterman Drive, San Francisco, CA 94129 to assess where the most effective point of insertion for a small tactical team would be
  

Here's the list of things you should do if you end up seeing Indiana Jones 4/catching gastroenteritis/find yourself with an insatiable desire to send Lucasfilm some depleted uranium and a wooden crate filled with Leiurus quinquestriatus (otherwise known as Deathstalker Scorpions):

• The first thing you need to do is go to the store and buy a pair of athletic shorts. Seriously, I thanked the Old Norse deities that I had a pair of athletic shorts because I certainly did not have time to constantly undo a belt, unbutton some shorts, or fumble around with a zipper when the shit flood gates opened. They will save you from so many horrifying shitty messes
• Make sure your path to the bathroom is unobstructed at all times
• Leave the toilet seat down. If you have diarrhea (hold on...if? I meant to say when) you can just slide your athletic shorts down and fall onto the shitter
• Get some sports drinks. Electrolytes, man. Keeps you fucking ENERGIZED goddamnit.
• Apologize to everyone that's been taking care of you because you're a filthy fucking asshole that's sick and pitiful and wreaks of shit

Gastroenteritis fucking sucks. George Lucas, I know it's all your fault and I'm coming for you. Your fucking battle droids and stupid alien booby-trapped cubicles covered in Mayan gold and shitty rejected prequel/sequel ideas are no match for my Daneaxe.

-K