Death comes a knockin'

The other day my family and I were laughing and laughing recounting the numerous ridiculous things they force me to eat(okay that’s a lie, I readily eat them, and with great aplomb too!) Generally they all seem to be in the flora genre. Thus far- several tasty specimens of bitter and acidic green leaf of varying sizes and consistencies(sometimes sprinkled with sugar) a couple varieties of tree bark(straight from a dirty bag, or mixed with coconut and served on…a bitter and acidic green leaf) also an assortment of root vegetables and tubers I have never seen the likes of before(usually served boiling-lava-hot from a giant street side cauldron) some interesting, flesh-colored seed pods(that I have seen the birds spit up) and of course small slivers of salty cheese served on a dirty blanket by a disheveled man on the street corner of an alley. As they were joyously proffering another Yemeni “delicacy” to me the other night I turned quite boastful, I CAN EAT ANYTHING! I NEVER GET SICK! I LOVE ALL FOOD! BRING IT ON YEMEN!! And Yemen? Let me tell you, Yemen brought it on.
The reason for my paucity of posts in recent days is because I WAS PRACTICALLY ON MY DEATH BED!! This is clearly a complete and total exaggeration but I gotta tell you, it was rough. I had a high fever, the shakes, the chills, super dizzy, extreme nausea, and sweating up a storm. Straight miserable. And it struck hard in the middle of the night.
It has recently come to my attention that I might just be extremely incompetent. That or I’ve never actually been sick on my own- without a beloved family member or roommate to coddle me (bring me toast!! Okay that one is just for Claire when I’m hungover..). Upon busting awake and bolting to the bathroom to throw up in the middle of the night, hazy, incoherent panic started to set in. First order of business? Water. I knew that I needed to replenish all the liquids I was rapidly expelling from my body. I tried to remember all the things I had to drink that day…coffee, some tea.. a soda.. OH MY GOD I’M EXTREMELY DEHYDRATED!(Spurred on by extreme dizziness, nausea and a raging, mind-numbing headache, being dehydrated seemed tantamount to a death sentence in my mind) I stumbled into the kitchen “WHERE IS THE WATER!! WHERE ON EARTH IS ALL THE WATER!?!” Incapable of finding the myriad bottles, jugs and pitchers of water strewn throughout our apartment(and knowing, inexplicably, that tap water would only exacerbate my condition) I opted for the only thing I could find; strawberry nectar. Yes, that’s exactly what you want to drink when you’ve been heaving up your insides, saccharine sweet, syrupy, strawberry nectar. Another wise choice. Thirst temporarily assuaged I moved on to the next task at hand, cooling my sweat-doused, fever-addled body. Clearly I was functioning at a very low level. A lack of contacts only heightened my fog. Fumbling around the coffin-sized bathroom, blind as a bat, I turned on the shower and flung myself in- not even hesitating to take off my clothing. It’s for times like this that I wish, oh how I wish I could go back and review my thought process. Cleary, at the time, throwing myself into the shower fully clothed AND THEN ripping them all off to storm around the apartment sans clothing seemed like the correct choice at the time. But in hindsight, I’m really just not sure that it was…
Sopping wet I flopped back onto my bed in a feverish haze waking periodically to vomit and lie down again. This was the scene that my roommate Catherine happened upon when she woke up the next morning- I’m sure I looked extremely attractive.(luckily at some point I had donned clothing again, Alhamdulillah)

So that lasted for a couple days but I have now recovered!

Last week of classes we studied injuries and ailments and giving recommendations with should/shouldn’t. It proved useful because both my classes were able to solicitously inquire about my illness, ask what remedies I tried, and offer some generic advice. While I was down for the count I got a million calls, emails, and text messages from my family, friends, and several of my students to make sure I was okay, see if I needed anything, and to ask Allah for a speedy recovery for me. It was all really sweet. Across the board whenever a Yemeni heard my symptoms, instead of thinking virus or food poisoning they immediately, matter-of-factly replied, “ohhhhh yep, its because of the weather change.” What? The weather change of stiflingly hot to a mite bit hotter? I guess I was unaware that a slight heat increase from 100 to 105 degrees was capable of inducing a three-day vomit fest. WELL PLAYED YEMEN, WELL PLAYED.