February 2/13

Part II: February 2nd.

As Etienne and I walked to the cab, he made an extraordinary admission: he was drunk.  After 8 drinks throughout the night, I was surprised.  He's normally fairly good at handling his liquor, and 8 or more is not unheard of for him. 

We got home, and he seemed to make for the bedroom fairly quickly.  Normally, in that state, he'd go into the office and find some music to blast (at a respectable level, after all, we have neighbours).  But not tonight.

I was worried that he might get a headache in the morning, so I gave him two advils and a glass of water, and he went straight to bed.  For once, I wasn't tired, and I wanted to stay up, so I decided to read.  I went to grab a glass of water, and then it happened.

WARNING: If you have a sensitive stomach or gag reflex, stop reading.

I'll wait.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I heard heaving.  I raced back to the bedroom in time to see Etienne let loose on the carpet beside the bed.  He vomited so much and so violently that blood vessels around his eyes and on his forehead burst, leaving him with a red, rashy look.  There was so much vomit.  Not having a bucket or anything handy, the only thing I could do was wait for the worst of it to end.

It was horrible.  He never pukes, no matter how much he drinks, and I've seen him drink much more in an evening.  Something was very wrong.

The carpet was absolutely trashed, and the odor was revolting.  It took two towels to clean up just the...messy part, but the carpet still showed a lot of damage.  I got him onto the sofa bed in the office, this time with a garbage can placed at his head, and I sat to keep watch over him.  He started to pass out, but his breathing was erratic and congested, so I knew I had to stay up and with him to make sure he didn't choke.  It was awful.

Finally, around 3:30 am, he was breathing calmly, and it seemed that the worst had passed, so I went into the living room to try and catch some sleep.

Around 9:30 am, he awoke, and in the process, woke me up.  He still wasn't able to keep anything down, so I set him up on the couch, with a garbage can nearby, and a glass of water with instructions to sip and not drink it when it's cold.  Then I set to work, cleaning the carpet in the bedroom.  After about two hours, I had made enough progress to stop and let it dry.

You know it's true love when you will suffer through the clean-up without assigning blame.

But my poor Etienne...it's been a very rough day.  He only managed to start eating simple things around 4 pm. 

We figure he must have caught a bug of some sort, because there's no way this would happen under normal circumstances.  All the same though...

A cure for hangovers...

...Wish you were here.