The Virus Crashed Our Holiday

A plague has decended upon this town. Those lucky enough to have escaped its wretched grasp may not know what I'm referring to. It's the stomach flu, people. And it was the theme of our holiday.

It struck Brian first on Christmas Eve. As he recovered in the days that followed, I grew quietly more confident in the virility of my own immune system, somehow having miraculously managed to evade the virus thus far. That confidence turned out to be a false sense of security.

Can someone please provide me with a medical explanation as to why illness seems to arrive this way:
In the middle of the night you awaken with a faintly familiar sinking feeling in your gut. By the time you reach full consciousness, that sinking feeling has grown into an all-out nausea. And before you have time to shake an angry fist at the sky and curse the stars that have dealt you what is sure to be at least one day of pure hell, you are racing to the bathroom to begin the Great Purging.

Thankfully (for me, but possibly not for Brian), when the plague hit my belly early Saturday morning, Brian was there to bring me a pillow and a blanket as I lay writhing on the bathroom floor. I could not have asked for a greater comfort than to be cared for by someone I love so dearly. He survived three solid days of my constant requests - "Can you bring me water?" "Can you bring me coke with ice?" "Can you move my water seven inches to the left and put one more ice cube in that coke?" "Oh, and by the way, can you not walk around the house with your shoes on? The noise is making my stomach angrier." He filled my fridge with good food, brought me tylenol (extra strength) and tums, and rented movies for me. Best of all, though, he chased away the loneliness that accompanies sickness simply with his loving presence.

In between the many trips to the bathroom ("Only bad things happen in there") and waves of rattling nausea, all in all I'd say we managed to have a pretty darn good time together this holiday weekend. I may have had healthier New Years, but I doubt that I've had happier.