Can I be dead now?

Ugh. Still unpleasantly ill. Worse, in fact.

So, this whole thing started several weeks ago (it was around my mother's birthday, which is August 7th), when I started getting stomach cramps and diarrhea. Started out occasionally, then more and more frequent until I basically couldn't eat anything without my digestive system staging a full-scale revolt.

Couldn't go to the doctor until Sept. 1st, when my insurance kicked in, so that was almost a month of unpleasantness, at which point I'd pretty much eliminated anything with color or flavor from my diet. The doctor sent me for tests, and it turned out to be an intestinal bacteria called C-diff, which sounds like a rapper but is actually a type of bacteria that commonly results from taking antibiotics and is often found in hospitals. It's unclear how I acquired said bacteria, since I've neither taken antibiotics nor been in a hospital recently, but that's neither here nor there.

And yet, ironically, the way to treat this bacteria is to give the person - wait for it - antibiotics. So, my doctor prescribed some, which I started taking on Tuesday. By Thursday, I had a whole new set of unpleasant symptoms, including nausea and vomiting. On the plus side, my stomach cramps have gone away, but that's possibly because I can't keep anything down long enough to anger the bacteria.

I called the doc on Friday, who suggested that this might be a side effect of the medicine, but if I could stick it out through the weekend, I should see some improvement. Today, when it got to the point where I couldn't actually stand up without feeling the urge to vomit, I called back and suggested that maybe this wasn't working according to plan and could we maybe try something else? She prescribed a different antibiotic, which I will start tomorrow.

In the meantime, I am just waiting for the old meds to get the heck out of my system. My dad has a theory that the meds make me more nauseous on an empty stomach, but it's a vicious cycle - the meds make me nauseous, so I eat less, so the meds make me more nauseous, etc. So now I am trying to resist my instincts and eat MORE whenever I feel like throwing up. Surprisingly, it's kind of working, but I'd still like to be better soon.

And the most ridiculous part? I've only missed two days of work this whole time (Friday and today). I'm insane.