Last Saturday night, I came down with something – I’m not sure of what the cause was. Whatever it was, I ended up throwing up about 7-8 times over the course of 8 hours – I didn’t get much sleep that night.
The next day was largely a blurry, dehydrated confusion. I slept most of the day, and didn’t eat anything. A little searching on the ‘net for my symptoms (nausea, vomiting, diahrrea, headache) turned up a lot of articles on stomach flu. I was curious what the medical jargon for this would be, and found gastroentiritis to be the closest fit. Don’t think that this is self-diagnosis though – gastroentiritis is purely a descriptive term for a collection of symptoms; it does not necessarily have a specific pathology. Causes can include bacteria (food poisoning), viral infection (noroviruses are the most common), and other pre-existing medical conditions.
While I was in a daze for those two days, I was constantly wishing for this dreadful sickness to be over. At this point I am able to hold food down again and am perfectly fine – life resumes to normal. However, I can’t help but think about how there are many people in the world at this time who live with chronic diahrrea, or are at constant risk of food or water poisoning because they live in the third world. My brief experience with discomfort is mild compared to theirs; I had a comfortable bed to sleep in, hygienic facilities, and running water. Others in third world countries likely have few or none of these. I cannot imagine what this hell would be like, but it scares me that it exists, and for so many people.
What can we do about it?
