What Happens in Vegas...

Definitely does not stay in Vegas.

(Also, hey everyone! )

So there was this thing last week where I was responsible for a big meeting for work in Las Vegas which I was confident I could totally handle, and did handle, and most everything went smoothly until everyone started getting sick.  It started at the beginning of the week when a couple people had some congestion and slightly sore throats. I thought, "no big deal, just get some throat lozenges and DayQuil and we will be fine." But by the end of the week I had lost 4 people to some weird cold who had to go home early and then on the way home when the folks who didn't catch the death cold caught THE STOMACH FLU.  Don't worry, I won't be super graphic here.

I happened to be one of the unlucky stomach-flu catchers.  It was rough.  Mostly I'm just glad that the majority of people made it from Las Vegas back to Portland and were safely home before feeling the symptoms (including myself).

Here's how it went down.  Friday came and most of us had morning activity planned before we left Vegas.  I had a massage which was much needed and then ran some errands before I headed to the airport.  I was feeling pretty tired and out of it, but that didn't phase me since I'd worked some long hours the previous couple days.  A lot of us from the meeting were on the same flight home to Portland so I met up with most of them before we boarded the plane.  I sat, read my eBook, and we landed.  I still felt a little tired and started feeling a bit head achy, but chalked it up to having not eaten enough or had enough water during the day.  I made my way to baggage claim and stood with coworkers who informed me that one of our other coworkers thought he had food poisoning because he started to get very ill on the plane.  We speculated what we thought he could've eaten (midnight burger run in Vegas, we assumed) and didn't think more of it.

I headed home ready to hang out with the Mr. and our puppies.  I was so glad to be home!  I neglected most of my unpacking, ate a quick dinner and hung out on the couch for most of the night.  I went to bed still feeling head achy but figured I just needed some rest.  I slept pretty soundly for most of the night and then around 6 am or so I woke up with a POUNDING headache, far worse than any I've had in quite some time.  I sipped some water and made myself go back to sleep.  Mr. got up to make breakfast around 7:30am and asked if I wanted anything.  I rolled over and the mere mention of food made me feel sick... and then I realized that I just felt sick in general.  Quietly I let him know I was staying in bed and not to make me breakfast and then I drifted back to sleep.  About an hour later I woke up and knew I needed to make a run for it to make it to the bathroom.  My stomach wasn't terribly achy, but my body made it pretty clear that there was an urgency to empty my bowels which it did for pretty much the rest of the morning.

I wore a pretty good track in the floor between my bed and the bathroom that morning and would fall right back asleep after each bout.  As the day SLOWLY progressed I felt worse and worse.  I ached all over and my headache was blindingly agonizing but I was afraid to take anything for fear that I would just throw it up. I sipped water and slept uncomfortably from about 10am to 4 or 5pm.  I finally did get out of bed as Mr was heading out to a BBQ (don't feel bad, he totally had my blessing to get out of that sick house!) and made my way to the couch downstairs where I could more easily watch movies and TV on Demand.

You know I'm sick when a food commercial is on and I immediately have to change the channel because even the sight of food made me feel awful.  Around 6:30pm I decided that I was tired of being sick and smelly so I took a hot shower and put clean sweats on before climbing right back into my spot on the couch.  The shower helped a little with my achy body, but I still felt like hell.  Poor Mr came home and had stopped and bought himself a "proper" dinner at Carl's Jr, the scent of which sent me running upstairs to escape.  I went to bed debating on whether or not to go to urgent care because my head hurt that bad, but then I didn't want to get into a car where it would be bumpy and noisy so I opted to just stay in bed.

I woke up feeling 10 times better on Sunday, but still a little weak and dehydrated so I took it pretty easy.  Upon arriving to work on Monday I found that the majority of my coworkers had caught the same awful bug that I had, but many of them weren't sitting on the toilet like me and had an even worse set of problems.  I felt pretty lucky to get by with what I suffered.

So this is a week where we all try to catch up and also try to take it easy because man, that bug will take it out of you.  On the bright side, it was my jump start detox before the holidays so I'm trying to only introduce healthier foods and liquids back into my daily routine.