Waterways Experiment Station Down!

Monday morning, I got up early to pick up labmate Casey in south Norman to drive to Vicksburg, MS, for this year's ADCIRC workshop. The host, this year, is the Army Corps of Engineers. The workshop was hosted by the Coastal and Hydraulic Laboratory, one of 4 (of 7 total nationwide) located at WES.

Despite getting a little turned around, due to horrible signage and bad 3G updating on Casey's iPhone, in Dallas, we made it to Vicksburg before Kendra and Dr. Kolar, who flew down because they needed to be back in OK early on Wednesday. We had dinner at Billy's Italian Restaurant (I wouldn't recommend it, although it wasn't horrible) in the outlet mall in Vicksburg. Then, I finished up my slides for my talk Tuesday morning.
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Not long after my talk, about the same time lunch was wrapping up, I started to feel not so great. And, as the afternoon progressed, my condition worsened. At one point, I went and laid down on one of the couches in the hallway outside the conference room for a while. About 3 PM, I went back to the hotel. The festivities were about to begin.

About 5:30, I made my way to the bathroom and proceeded to throw up my lunch (bbq) first into the sink, then into the toilet. I didn't feel great before lunch, so I didn't eat that much, either. At one point, I realized I was laying on the floor in the bathroom and I don't remember exactly how I got there, although I can guess.

After puking, I felt better, so I cleaned up the sink (including the skin of a piece of sausage-like "meat" I had at lunch and cantaloupe from a morning snack) and took a shower. I got dressed and went downstairs, thinking I'd go to dinner, as planned, with the group.

I was not allowed to go to dinner, which was probably good. I grabbed a gatorade from the snack shop and was feeling bad before I made it back to my room. As soon as the elevator door opened on my floor, I headed straight for the floor because I felt so awful. The bad news was that my room was just feet away. The good news was that laying on the floor didn't feel so bad. So, I just stayed there for quite some time ... about 2 hours, actually. Eventually, I went to my room.

About 9, I started feeling worse again, but also had to pee. So, I went to the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet and realized I didn't have much time. I grabbed one of the towels, made a bowl-shape and threw up. Then, more of the green mixture - the gatorade I picked up was blue - came up to fill the "bowl". A third instance was collected, but I realized I needed another receptacle if more was to come. So, I discarded the nasty towel into the adjacent tub and grabbed a hand towel, which caught the 4th round. I left the nasty mess in the tub and went back to lie in bed.

Casey brought back subway bread and gatorade (which I requested) and I ate a little bit, feeling somewhat better after getting even more out of my system. Then, I went to sleep. I woke up around midnight and proceeded to hurl into the garbage can strategically positioned by my bed.

I felt pretty solid Wednesday morning, but things went downhill quickly. By 9:30, I realized I wasn't going to be able to sit through talks, so we cut our losses and headed for home. I drove for the first 100 miles, then turned the keys over to Casey. In retrospect, I'm not sure how I drove that far.

The drive was pretty smooth, aside from the bumpy roads (which felt even worse because I was reclined with my head against the headrest) and the constant nausea. Oh, and the stupid lady in the Chevy Colorado who tried to run us off the road, unknowingly. When Casey honked, she didn't move back into her lane, she just waved and continued to cut us off. What a moron (or, a different 5 letter word)! It was definitely not a fun experience, though. Just south of Denton, TX, I had Casey pull over (we were in fairly slow traffic) and mostly dry heaved out the side of the car, although a fizzy pink mixture of 7-up and pepto tablets came out at one point.

I made it home at 7 and went straight to bed. I have been able to eat some food and keep it down, but my system is still pretty jacked up.

Maybe, I'll feel better tomorrow.