For the first time in weeks, I slept until the afternoon. When I awoke, I had a moderate headache, but I figured the gas heat had dried out my sinuses again, and the pain would subside shortly. But oh, how wrong I was!

A few hours after waking, my head began to pound so violently that I seriously thought of screaming, but didn’t, because it would just make the pain worse. It was at this point that I started to feel nausea.

I looked around the house for pain reliever, and found none. So I knew that I would have to venture out in the rain to get something, and just the thought of it made my head hurt worse. It seriously felt as if my head would explode, and very soon.

I got dressed, went out to the van and cranked it up. The nausea was getting worse and it was very difficult to focus my eyes. The local Dollar General store is less than a mile from home, but I began to wonder if I would make it back home before I vomited. I decided to attempt it anyway, so I put the van in gear.

This is the usual route to the Dollar General Store. Google Maps says it's 0.8 mile.

The drive to Dollar General was nothing short of a nightmare. Waves of nausea overtook me several times on the way there. When I pulled into the parking lot, I began to feel anxious about going inside, fearing I would puke all over the place before I could get out. I told myself over and over, “…mind over matter, Kelly…mind over matter,” and it seemed to have worked for just long enough for me to go in the store, grab a bottle of ibuprofen, a bag of catfood for the kitties, (’cause they were out), and a gallon of the best tea in the whole wide world, (because we had nothing to drink in the house).

Ah, but once I returned to the van, I felt another wave of nausea and this time, it wasn’t playing around. I quickly threw my newly bought items into the van and jumped in, cranked her up and put her in gear. As I pulled out of the parking lot, my vision became very distorted and I was really starting to wonder if I should even be driving, but it was a very short drive to the apartment, and I had to press on. I began to wager in my mind whether or not I would make it home and to the bathroom, before my stomach valves reversed. In my mind, the drive seemed to take forever, but in reality it was probably less than a minute. The moment I turned onto my street is when I came to the realization that I’d never make it to the driveway, let alone the bathroom, but I was damn sure gonna try.

I was probably about 20 feet from my driveway when the flood gates opened. I hit the brakes and hurriedly threw the door open – but not hurriedly enough – I threw up all over the door panel, but most of it went onto the street. At this point, I did not give a rat’s ass which of my neighbors might be watching me. When you’re in the middle of vomiting, you don’t care much about anything that might be going on around you.

This is the Google Street View of where I was when I had to stop and puke. You can see my car there in the driveway in front of my house. This is how close I was to making it home!

In a moment or two, I was finally able to gain enough composure to pull into my driveway, jump out and run into the house and finish the job in the bathroom, (what little was left in my stomach by then).

The vomiting only compounded the headache and it began to throb even more violently than before. After splashing my face with water, I lay down on the bed, clutching my head and watching the room spin for a few minutes. Slowly, the pain started to subside. In an hour’s time, I felt about 75% better. I had a slight nagging headache the rest of the day, but no more nausea, thank the gods!

NOTE: In the Google Street View above, my car is not wrecked, and as you can see, it is summertime. This is an old street view, because my car has been wrecked since February 2009. It must have been taken in the summer of 2008, huh? Interesting.