FEAR.

May 30th, 2017

I feel like I’m breaking.

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At 2am Felix started to vomit violently.

That’s when my panic attacks started.

We were sleeping, then I feel him sitting straight up. He is always very healthy, the only other time I’ve seen him sick was that one time in Japan. That was scary because we were so far from home, without meds, a plane to catch, and both extremely sick.

But that has nothing on this.

Felix – as well as you, most likely – is aware of my phobia of vomiting, and so only later today he told me that he was feeling nauseous all evening. He didn’t say anything, and eat all his food, so it came as a shock when I heard him running down to the toilet and hear him throw up. Many, many times.

In that moment, at the very first sound, I jump up the bad, run downstairs, open a window and cover my hears. Shaking, In terror. This first panic attack lasts even after he comes to the living room to check on me. Notice how he has to check on me – he was the one feeling ill, but I couldn’t handle it, and it felt awful.

When I calm down, I think about what I cooked him for dinner: one of the sides was Chinese leaf, which I didn’t know was a type of cabbage (to which he is intolerant, but usually just gets some bloating).

I felt terrible for feeding him that, I just didn’t know, but if anything I figured that if that was the case, with all that puking any trace of it should have gone away, and he should be able to go back to sleep.

I was wrong. 10 minutes later he runs down again, same thing.

He keeps on going for a while, till I call my parents at 3am. At this point I knew it wasn’t the food, but a bug. And so it was contagious, and by now it probably made its way to me as well.

My parents suggest me to call the ambulance. Felix says he doesn’t need anyone to check on him.

5 minutes later, he has a terrible vomit attack and asks me to call, and so I do.

15 minutes later, the ambulance arrives: two people come out, the woman seems a bit bothered to be here at this hour, whilst the man doesn’t say much.

They go up to him, and just confirm it’s a virus, and he has to wait it out. Nothing else. Considering the amount of pain he was in, and the fact that he just couldn’t stop throwing up, I was hoping that they would give him something to help, but no.

The nightmare continues. Felix gets out a bucket (the bathroom at this point is all filled with vomit to the point that nothing goes down) and sleeps in the little bedroom downstairs.

It doesn’t get any better till 8, when he finally manages to nap, and I take the chance to wear some rubber gloves and spray bleach anywhere I can think of.

He wakes up at around 11am, and does a final ‘push’. Falls back to sleep, till 3-4pm.

I go out with my phone on hand, and grab some of the things both the internet and pharmacists recommended. When I get back, Felix was awake and able to chat with me for 10 minutes. I had my mask on, and kept my distance, but I don’t have much hope I will be able to escape the virus as I read it can be contagious for 2 whole weeks after the person recovers.

When it comes to me, I’ve done lots of crying today, and got reminded of how awful panic attacks are, especially if you have to deal with them alone.

This is my biggest fear coming to life, and what is worse is that I can’t shake the thought that I will soon start to feel like Felix did, and that is the scariest thing ever to me. Especially because Felix isn’t well enough to be able to look after me either.

I’m grateful that friends and my parents reached out, so I don’t feel too alone, but obviously nobody can come over to help so I am, in fact, by myself at the moment. Not to mention I need to also care for the pugs in all of this.

I have had about 3 hours of sleep on the couch in total, I feel exhausted and mentally broken. I can’t seem to eat much, my dinner consisted on a banana. I’m a ball of stress and anxiety and I keep on crying at random. I’m just so afraid.

I thought maybe coming on here and share all the details (sorry about how gross this post is) would somehow make me feel better – I can’t say it has done that, but if anything it’s taking some time off of me not doing anything other than staring out the window.

If you don’t hear anything from me, for a little while, you know why, but I’m hoping with all my heart that I will able to stay clear of the virus.

Marzia.