Everything was fine until Sunday afternoon, at which point I began to shit like a broken fire hydrant. In seven hours I dehydrated to the point of fainting--even though I kept taking liquids; they were just going right through, not passing "Go", not collecting $200, etc. Imodium did nothing.
Around 9:20 I went to the bathroom yet again, started feeling woozy, and the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the vanity. I cleaned up, crawled out of the bathroom, and asked Mom to call 911.
At the ER they ran a few tests, pumped two liters of saline in, and sent me home. I got home around 1 AM with two jugs of Gatorade and a monstrous headache, which is still with me, but muted enough that the idea of sitting at the computer is no longer utterly unthinkable.
I have never been that dehydrated before. When I got ultra-sick at the end of my trip to Florida in 2002 I never felt like I was going to faint. Of course I had been slugging back Gatorade and Powerade almost continuously, and I didn't do that today because we didn't have any--so I drank plain water.
And as I said I'm not sure Gatorade would have done anything; if it doesn't stay in your system long enough for the body to absorb it, how does the actual composition of what you drink matter?
Just another example of what it's like to be me: it's another action-filled adventure!
