Queasy Peasey

If you follow me on Twitter, know me personally, or even watch me from afar, you'll know that I spend a lot of my time on buses. This is an unfortunate necessity for me as I'm too lazy to learn how to drive and not anywhere near rich enough to hire a chauffeur.

Having a Chronic illness  is hard when you are at the mercy of public transport. Well it's pretty bloody hard most of the time but for the benefit of this post we are focussing on this foible of mines on particular. 

With Crohn's Disease I often feel the sudden urge to rush to the bathroom, queasy and on the verge of vomiting at any moment, and faint a lot of the time. One of these issues is difficult enough to handle on it's own whilst whizzing around town with a bunch of grumpy strangers, let alone when you are dealing with all three. 

Three is usually the magic number in my case as all three more often than not go hand in bowel. 

The sweats start, then I feel dizzy, then queasy, then faint, then icy cold, then the urgency to go the loo strikes, then back to queasy again and this cycle continues until one of the 3 wins the race and annihilates me first. 

I've never had 'an accident' on public transport, or outside of the comfort of a bathroom for that matter, and I've never fainted on a bus either. I have been sick on one though, and fainted and threw up in public an inordinate amount of times throughout my life. 

Being sick is almost a hobby of mine. Not one I enjoy or particularly relish to be honest (yuk, relish), but the amount of time spent doing it could certainly lead it to be called one.

Whether on a bus, or in a car, a plane or on a jet ski, throwing up or passing out in public is certainly never pretty and unfortunately never acceptable, even in this day and age. 

In my experience, if you throw up/pass out  in public you are either drunk, on drugs, haven't eaten, too hot, too cold, travel sick, or a combination of all of the above. [The only place these rules don't apply are in hospital - being sick in there is totally fine by the way.]

I run through a mental checklist when feeling nauseous on the bus; 

1. Is there a window near me I can open without irritating my fellow passengers? 

2. How far am I from home? Can I walk the rest of the way?

3. How many layers of clothing can I remove before becoming indecent? 

4. How far am I from the hospital? Can I walk? 

5. Do I have my sick bag? If not what can I use in an emergency? 

6. Are my lips blue yet? 

7. Would any of these people give a hoot/call an ambulance/notice, if I dropped to the floor right now?

8. BREATHE IN. BREATHE OUT. 

This daft checklist is the only thing that keeps my mind focused when I feel like death in public. If I can answer yes to any of those questions then I might just be ok. It's amazingly important not to let the panic set in otherwise you will probably end up projectile vomiting over the entirety of the No.27 and all it's occupants. Whether you want to or not. Keep calm is such a cliché these days but it's still very important to remember.

But that's me arrived at my destination now with my insides intact so this blog has served it's purpose as a wonderful distraction ;) THANK-YOU x x