An homage to St. Patrick’s Day in Boston. I return to you March 17, 2016.

 

This story is embarrassing.

I turned 21 November of 2011. This meant that legally, I couldn’t drink until the end of my first semester of my senior year of college. My closest friends were all gorging themselves on the bar scenes, while I wasted away in my dorm watching movies on my laptop and waiting until the next house party, where I had to leech off of the older friends for liquor. I didn’t dare try to run out for my own liquor, considering that’s what got me a night in jail my freshman year, so I swallowed my pride and sent my friends to the packy with cash in hopes of them returning with that I asked for. But no longer! I told myself, I am now legally allowed to drink!

My birthday party was spent at a local bar directly off campus, where my New York license was questioned (twice), and my free shot was peppermint schnapps. My roommates and I – all six of us – threw fruity drinks down, danced like cheap hookers, and took pictures that now, five years later and fifty pounds lighter, make me depressed to look back on. We stumbled back to our apartment complex at the other end of campus, Stephanie roused our neighbor at 2 AM who came over with a bottle of rum from Belize that had a piece of bark or the barrel or just a hunk of driftwood that gave it “character” and “flavor” and “splinters.” We drank it anyway. I picked my roommate, Stephanie, off the floor of my room, and tucked her in, kicked out the neighbor, and passed out.

The next morning was something likened to the Hangover. I woke up in a daze, headache present, but not overly nauseous that I couldn’t go eat the remainder of my birthday ice cream cake in my underpants in the living room. Jackets and shoes littered our common area, cabinets were carelessly left open and all I cared about was ice cream cake and Spongebob started at 10. The previous night was successful, but I wanted more. I hadn’t really ventured outside the lines of public drinking since my scare with the law and my probationary period, and I wanted to at least go out in style my senior year. I’m spending Saint Paddy’s Day in Boston.

Almost four months passed. My roommate, Catey, lived in Quincy when she wasn’t at our apartment in Bridgewater, so it only made sense to drive to her place in the morning, pre-game, and then roam the streets of Boston until I forgot I was in Boston.

I woke up with a tummy ache.

Oh no. Not today. Why does my stomach hurt?

And it wasn’t that kind of sharp pain ache either. It was that grumbly, gurgly, growly stomach ache that meant you had to go to the bathroom…and a lot. I immediately ran through all the school food I had the day before in search of something suspicious, but nothing out of the grody ordinary turned up in my mind. Maybe a shower. Maybe it’ll pass.  The shower definitely succeeded in making my hair wet, but failed in settling my intestines. Bathroom one more time, then I’ll be good.

I met Catey and her friend at a Panera, where they wanted to grab a starchy lunch before the drinking began.

“I just have to run to the bathroom.”

They ordered pick-2 meals, I, a plain toasted bagel with butter on the side. Plain bagels are good. Maybe this will be fibrous enough. My rumbles turned into pains. I was too embarrassed to tell my friends that I had to frequent the toilets, and kept it under wraps. That was, until, Catey suggested we hang out at her house for a bit before heading into Boston. She was right – it was too early to start bar hopping, and I needed to lay down.

“Before we go, I just have to run to the bathroom.”

I couldn’t be getting ill. This wasn’t fair. I had my “I *heart* Beer” shirt on where the heart was actually a mug full of beer. I waited 21 years for the stars to align and me to be in Boston on the most Irish of holidays to pub crawl around some of the most Irish of pubs in the US. I had to go to the bathroom again.

“Are you OK, Kaitlin? You don’t look so good.” I came out of Catey’s bathroom, clammy and shaken. “I honestly don’t know. I can’t stop going to the bathroom.” What I wanted to say was, I can’t stop peeing out of my butt oh my God why is this happening to me make it stop I’m scared and I haven’t had a virus in like seven years. 

I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know what happened to the bagel an hour earlier but I figured my stomach destroyed it prior to exit. Catey’s mom fed me pretzels which made me writhe in pain, and, naturally, feel like I had to go to the bathroom more. “Here’s some pepto,” in a Boston accent. I swigged the chalky bubble gum down and on contact with my stomach, a fire broke out. My body was on fire. I was freezing, I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Holy shit you look awful. We should go to the hospital.” I could see the sympathy in Catey’s mom’s eyes along with the quiet desperation of, I’ve never met this girl and she’s dying in my house. Get her out right now. “I hate hospitals.”

By the time I agreed to go to the hospital, I was sweaty, cold, laid out across Catey’s back seat, floating in and out of consciousness. I don’t remember the drive to the hospital, only that every time I opened my eyes I dry heaved and every time she hit a bump I prayed to all celestial beings to not shit my pants in front of my friends. I felt defeated as the sun went down and Saint Patrick’s Day would be missed.

We walked into the emergency room where I handed my information to Catey and bee-lined for the bathroom with my sweaty self in my holiday attire, clutching an opaque water bottle filled with ginger ale. I stared at my face in the mirror as if I was looking at a stranger. I was so angry at myself. I was angry at the day. I was angry at my lower intestines. I was angry at whatever school food got me sick. I walked out of the bathroom and saw all eyes on me. The people in the waiting room, glared up and down at this dehydrated, sick girl, on Saint Patrick’s Day, in Boston, holding an opaque water bottle. Shit, I thought, everyone in here thinks I’m wasted.

“Have anything to drink tonight?” The nurse strapped me in to take my blood pressure. I could barely talk without being winded. “No,” I gasped, “I just can’t stop shitting.” Within minutes I was put in a room, stripped down, and thrown into a hospital gown. A nurse stuck me with an IV and I instantly began to cry. I started to have an anxiety attack, because I realized the last time I was in a hospital was when my mom died. I’m dying. Catey, my pillar of strength, and her friend who I met for the first time that day who was now staring at me braless in an hospital gown while I shuffled myself to and from the bathroom helped me to relax until the doctor came in.

“What did you eat today?” The lady doctor was scribbling on her official little doctor clipboard while I squirmed around on the bed.

“Well, the first real food I had was a bagel, and it just came right out the other end.” Immediately, she stopped writing. Her eyes widened as she looked me dead in the eyes, “A…a whole bagel…a whole bagel just….came out?” I laughed, and then realized that this wasn’t a joke. This woman – this medical professional who was to take care of me thought I crapped out on whole toasted plain bagel with butter. “Well no, it was very much digested.”

“Oh. Right then. I might require a stool sample.”

“I have nothing to give you.”

“Right. Well, regardless, it seems you have gastroenteritis. A little bug sticks to your intestine, your body is trying to get it out. It’s been going around. And it should pass within the next couple of days. Here’s an anti-nausea prescription. Stay on the IV until you can drink water without throwing up, then you can go home.”

“I haven’t thrown up yet today, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Catey drove me back to my apartment that night in my truck while her friend tailed us in her car. I felt much better with a body full of IV. I got home around 10 PM. My whole day was spent in pain and in a hospital bed. Saint Patrick’s Day was lost. I lay my head on my pillow. Finally, I thought, now I can get some sleep. Then it hit me. The ice water I drank before I left. It waited in the shadows until I got home. I sprang up from my bed. There’s the throwing up part the doctor mentioned. I searched for my anti-nausea prescription, only to remember it was left on the hospital bed on my way out. The defeat sunk in again. I crawled into my bed, shut my eyes, and slept for 14 hours.