Dying

As each day goes by presumably we all get closer to death. I get sick a lot. I haven't tracked the specific frequency, but it definitely feels like it's happening around once a month. In 2018 I faced what seemed like my scariest sickness. Somewhere around maybe 8pm (I don't remember) I started vomiting. This was a pretty unique experience, because vomiting is very rare for me.

The first time I can really remember vomiting when I was 12. I was at Sunday school preparing for my Bar Mitzvah. It felt like I had drank some bad water. I felt incredibly queasy and lightheaded. I was waiting for my dad to either wrap up making small talk with the Rabbi or helping the Rabbi's family with tech support. I don't know what I was doing. At some point I was sitting poolside, and then I chose to walk in their home.

Right as I walked into the Rabbi's home I projectile vomited water. It was such a relief to vomit that I surprisingly didn't feel bad. After that I was pretty impressed at the effectiveness of vomiting.

In 2018 I did feel the initial relief from vomiting, but afterwards I couldn't keep down any liquid. The situation seemed dire, and I couldn't sleep so I decided to go the hospital at around 11pm. Even in these dire circumstances I remember trying to figure out what hospital my insurance would cover. Ultimately, I chose to go to Zuckerberg as my lyft driver berated me on the way for it not being a good hospital.

When I was first checked into the hospital they naively decided to do a blood test. As the blood test was wrapping up I told the nurse that I was about to faint. The last thing I remember hearing was honey we won't let you faint, followed by you fainted when I woke up from this. Due to their shock of me fainting (shouldn't be shocking I had nothing in my system) they ran an EKG to make sure everything was okay. Then I was lectured about warning nurses that I faint during blood tests as I was wheeled to my hospital room. Ultimately I was given two IV bags throughout the night, and then prescribed anti nausea medication and released at 5am.

Yesterday I encountered a very similar experience. I went to sleep late, because I was watching the survivor finale, and then woke up at 4am feeling unwell. I vomited a few times, and felt initial relief. Later in the morning I called my dad to let him know what was happening, and as I was sitting up to talk to him I felt the oncoming unstoppable force of vomit. I told my dad I had to go, but unfortunately I didn't make it to my bathroom, which is saying a lot since my apartment is small. I was stuck vomiting on the floor, and then having to clean that up.

When this happened I called in sick to work, although I had an important work meeting that I was trying to make. At 9am when the vomiting still wasn't stopping I mustered the energy to walk to the nearby pharmacy buy some dramamine, and pedialyte. I took the dramamine at 10am and at 11:30am I had vomited again. After not drinking anymore water or liquids I got the energy to walk to urgent care and finally got prescribed some zofran to make things better.

I didn't delve very deep into how Zofran works, but it's pretty wild the gut sends serotonin to the brain to induce vomiting, and zofran blocks these receptors. This drug was approved for medical use in 1990. I wonder what my experience would be like if I didn't have this drug at my disposal, but I am glad that it's already saved me twice in life, and if this is a recurring pattern then it'll come in handy again.

In briefly looking up info on zofran I learned that it's used to treat cyclic vomiting syndrome where people end up vomiting 6-12 times an hour for a few hours to over 3 weeks. It's wild how robust we are as humans that even going through this degree of vomiting people can continue living on. Although that definitely requires hospital stays to ensure that people are staying hydrated.

Most of us will only die once in our life, so it's hard to know what a near death experience is like. Something like a car almost hitting you is certainly a near death experience that we can relate to. In this case though I am thinking about near death experiences in terms of being sick. At one point earlier this year I spent basically 36 hours in bed, because I was sick. Once my lymph nodes were so inflamed it hurt to turn my neck. This year my tonsils were so inflamed that it hurt to swallow and even drink water.

Although a lot of these sicknesses feel awful they are probably far from death both in terms of experience, and how close they are really tied to threatening my existence. I do get the sense that my sicknesses are more severe than others. It's also hard to say if this is true. Until we can jump into someone else's brain and see the world for how they see it and feel it we won't know, but it certainly seems that being sick wipes me out way more than others.

Here's to hoping I continue on my path to recovery from this sickness!