Yet Another Don't Do This Post

At least I got my shoes on....

Yesterday at 9:15AM, I cracked open one eye and looked at the clock. Drat. Church started in fifteen minutes and I was still in the same position I had been about thirteen hours earlier.

I pulled the sheet over my face as I tried to quickly think of my options:

• to turn over and make a run for a world record slug imitation
• get up, take a shower, eat a leisurely breakfast, and attend a later service, or
• what I did.

Which was to rip out of bed, dash through the bathroom, pull on the nearest outfit with somewhat similar colors, thunder down the stairs while yelling for John to get Goldie up and running so that we could make church.

Bless him. He was sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee after he had already taken a shower, fed the schnauzers, eaten an omelette, and made a phone call to visit with his mom. All he had to do was to stand up and walk out the door, keys already in his pocket. Someday I want to be that kind of person. Seriously.

As I hopped past the kitchen on one foot while trying to get my shoe on, it occurred to me that I hadn't taken my meds, and that....oooo. I hadn't been able to successfully pull off this frantic we're-really-really-late-for-church routine for ages.

Nice.

I was mentally congratulating myself on my pep as I made a grab for my pill box, threw the entire contents of the cheery yellow MORNING section into my mouth and slugged it down with John's leftover coffee.

This is not how I usually take my morning medications. And, YOU shouldn't do it that way, either, which is why I'm writing this post. Why not, you ask?

Because by the time we hit the church parking lot, which is exactly six minutes away from our house -- I know this from many years of last minute GYATM (Get Your Ass To Mass) experiences -- I felt a niggling little.....twinge.....of something in my stomach. Hm, I thought.

Every spot in the lot was filled, since the Knights of Columbus were serving their famous chocolate chip pancakes after each of the Masses that day, and John decided to drop me off at the church steps while he found a place to park Goldie elsewhere. I stepped into the atrium and heard the first reading begin.

Yesss. We had made it within the first three minutes of the service. Terese would probably notice that we weren't there for the opening hymn, but I could live with that.

What I couldn't live with, however, was the huge wave of nausea that hit me smack dab in a full body blow right as I glanced down the aisle looking for a seat.

Whoa.

The room actually began to spin. I bolted back outside and met John sprinting up the steps. "John. I'm going to PUKE!"

John sympathetically rubbed my back while I crouched down in the shade of a tree and thought that if I had to die somewhere, might as well be at church, I suppose.....yuk. I hate feeling nauseous and this round felt like it had potential to blast past the highest mark on the barf-o-meter.

He knew exactly what had happened. "Took your pills on an empty stomach?"

I nodded miserably. "Get Goldie. This isn't going away for awhile, I think."

So we sllloooowwwwwlllyyy made our way home with my head hanging halfway out the window. Goldie really doesn't like upchuck on her interior almost as I dislike being the upchucker. John pulled over to the curb every time a car came up behind us and let them pass. I'm sure I looked exceptionally attractive as the people in their cars moved around us.

Crumb.

It took a very slowly eaten bowl of oatmeal, a glass of seltzer water, and about three hours to settle things down.

Dumb stupid pills. Dumb stupid coffee.

Actually, dumb stupid Julia. I knew better. 30 mg of prednisone, plaquenil, and all my other meds on an empty stomach is truly a dumb stupid thing.

Guys. Don't do it.