The Vomit Diaries

Like my siblings and my daughter, I am prone to travel sickness. I think my siblings have largely grown out of it, but I still get it. My daughter and I dosed up on travel sick pills on our recent trip on the Spirit of Tasmania (our first time on a ship) which did the trick for us. But it got me thinking about my vomit history.

I’m not sure which came first; vomiting in Dr Pearce’s car when he took us kids up to his holiday house in Lyonville for a weekend (he was a notoriously erratic driver!), or that time Jen and I went up in a Cessna with Dad's friend Dave piloting, and Mum in the front seat. On both occasions I would have been eight or nine.

It might have been a Piper. Darnit, I can’t remember, but it was a small craft, and it had a roof-door that slid open.

We took off from Fogarty’s Field in Melton, Victoria. By the time it came to landing, my stomach had enough of its baggage and decided to project all around the cabin. Jen used to have a significant phobia to vomit … but over the years I’ve helped her with that.

Dave, thinking he was helping all concerned, including himself no doubt, opened the door ajar to let in fresh air. Even though we were still airborne, Jen tried to get out. Yep, she really hated vomit! I can only imagine how stressful this situation must have been for pilot and parent! The plane landed safely with one child’s head sticking out the roof of the plane and the other kid shrinking with mortified embarrassment in the back of the plane.

Moving forward to my mid-twenties – Jen and I played competition squash. This night, we’d finished our matches in Werribee and I was driving us both home. I’m kind of an all or nothing creature which is one reason not long after this event my doctor, on diagnosing hypertension, advised me to give squash a big miss as being too dangerous to my health. But anyhoo – this particularly fateful night, I’d played so hard and smoked a mountain afterwards, that I triggered a migraine-type headache. I still insisted on driving though … the folly of youth.

I was driving us home on the back roads from Werribee to Bacchus Marsh in the middle of the night when I think I managed to gasp out an apology to my vomitphobe sister a split second before doing my impression of the exorcist onto my windscreen. While wrestling the steering wheel to get the car into the gravel at the side of the road, I vomited uncontrollably. I caught a glimpse of my sister’s panic and low visibility inside the car made me wish I had internal windscreen wipers which resulted in me bursting out laughing … between green jets of spew. Funnily enough my headache disappeared. This time, at least, Jen waited until the car was stationery before trying to get out of the vehicle – that’s progress, right? She has reminded me from time to time how bizarre it was watching her sister vomit onto the car’s windscreen while laughing. I can only imagine.

Over ensuing years, I developed a rather significant allergy to shellfish. I didn’t know of the allergy until later on with a repeat performance, but on this occasion, I became ill overnight after eating the most delicious spaghetti marinara. My husband at the time was at work and so poor Jen was called upon to drive me to hospital. She came to get me, armed with a bucket, and navigated to the hospital quite beautifully albeit full of tension and hard turns on curves. But not once did she try to bail out of the car even though I gurgled quite a lot.

Ah yes, the Vomit Diaries. As with all things vomitus, there is quite a lot more, but I think I’ll end this reverie for now with just one more observation. If you can’t stop vomiting, try drinking Fanta. It doesn’t stop you vomiting, but it’s somewhat pleasant coming up as well as going down.