Dream Escape

Disturbed Dreams

Misti woke with a start. The dream that woke her was disturbing and disgusting, but that isn't what woke her. It was the feeling that she was invading. Unfortunately, the sudden wakefulness was only solidifying her memories of the dream. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the picture of her intimately entwined naked parents out of her mind.

Closing her eyes, she laid her head back down. It was no use, she wasn't tired. No amount of coaxing could get her back to sleep. After tossing and turning for several minutes, she gave up and wandered into the kitchen.

Staring at the contents of the fridge, nothing look appetizing. Even looking at the sickly sweet ice cream had her stomach churning. With a suddenness that caught her off guard, her stomach lurched, and she vomited, with barely enough time to make it to the trash. Misti dragged the trash into the front room with her, and turned on the television. It was obvious that there would be no more sleep tonight.

Scanning through the channels, she tried to find something mind numbingly boring, in hopes that she might fall asleep on the couch. It didn't make any difference, her mind would not shut down.

About an hour after the vomiting started, she found herself running to the bathroom, as the diarrhea kicked in. The diarrhea was relentless, so she gave up on returning to the television, and just sat on the toilet watching videos on her phone.

Looking up, she saw the increased light through the fogged glass windows, which told her the sun was coming up. Despite the vomiting and diarrhea, she didn't feel tired at all. The diarrhea had started to taper off, so she hoped she was done, but her stomach seemed to have other ideas, but this was somehow different. As she puked, it burned as it came out, and she could see blood in the vomit.

She quickly cleaned up, and went to her parents room. Despite the cleanup, she must have still looked bad, as her parents eyes opened in shock.

Her mother asked in concern, "What's the matter honey?"

Misti looked at her, "I've been up all night puking and the runs. Just now, I puked up blood, and it burned as it came up."

Her parents immediately got up and got dressed. "Let's get you to the hospital," added her father as an explanation. They bundled up her baby brother, and woke her younger sister who complained loudly about being woke up on a Saturday morning. The trip to the hospital was quick, and Misti spent it with her butt-cheeks clenched to avoid making a mess, especially when she puked in the bucket held to her chest.

The hospital quickly got her to a room, but that was the last quick thing that was done. They gave her a bedpan and puke bucket, and gown to change into. She wasn't allowed to use the toilet, because they wanted to keep samples for testing. It was quite embarrassing, and finally her dad was sent home with her sister, because they got tired of kicking them out of the room every time Misti had to take a dump.

A half hour later, nurses finally came in to replace the nearly full containers. The doctor came in shortly after, and set up a bunch of tests, including blood tests, and ordered an IV, which were taken care of another half hour later. There had been a major accident with a bus full of children, though Misti wasn't sure how she knew this.

A couple hours later, Misti had finally stopped expelling fluids from both ends, but her throat felt like it was still on fire, and she couldn't get rid of the foul taste in her mouth. Trying to drink anything was useless. It hurt, and she found herself coughing it back up, like it had gone down the wrong tube. Pain killers added to her IV did help, though.

The doctor finally came in, "Your tests came back abnormally normal. Your white count is normal, hydration, nutrition, saline. There is no evidence of food poisoning. Most likely, this is viral.

"The pain you are experiencing is advanced heartburn. You were throwing up pure stomach acid, and it burned on its way out. The damage it caused would explain the blood. We'll give you some medication to help that heal up, but you may be on a liquid diet for several days.

He smiled at Misti, "Once you can keep something down, I see no reason you can't go home."

Three hours later, she still couldn't drink anything, and they moved her to long term care.