Leaving a Piece of Me in Bali

I seriously debated on whether or not to share this story.  Since, however, I've spent a considerable amount of time dealing with this particular situation since last posting, I don't have much else to share.  Plus, I won't let my own humiliation deprive you of these little gems.  You're welcome.  I warn you that it is unpleasant, unladylike and will undoubtedly conjure mental images that will haunt you for years to come...

I pooped myself.

Don't worry, I did not post a photograph to compliment this story.  

Since being in Bali for a month now, we've run into several other people complaining of the infamous "Bali Belly" that many travelers inevitably get from contaminated food or water in these parts.  Armed with a fancy schmancy water purification system, Kelly and I have skirted through Bali without the slightest trace of the dreaded Bali Belly (not counting the self-induced hangovers).  I perhaps was even feeling a little cocky about the whole situation since Kelly and I have been uninhibited in our dining decisions; street vended banana chips are delicious.  As our island adventure was winding down, Bali caught me just in time to send me off with a nice case of food poisoning.  I resent this for many reasons, most of which is because the cute, little name Bali Belly is blindingly misleading, as you will see.

It all began with a horrible nights sleep.  Kelly and I woke up the next morning complaining of having what we thought was an obnoxious, but slight case of food poisoning consisting of a mild fever that kept us up for most of the night.  Remarkably, however, we did not feel too terrible when we got up that morning and even braved yoga.  Things then got progressively worse for me throughout the day.  Most notably that I was not even slightly hungry.  In my years of being on this earth, it is rare that I am ever not hungry.  This snackasaurus is always hungry.  After stuffing myself at Thanksgiving, yep, I'll go for some pie.  Even when I'm sick I have that "feed a cold" mentality.  When I'm feeling down, those are emotions I can easily eat away with call to Dominos and homemade batch of cookies.  On this scorching day though, I was anti-hungry.  Uh oh.  And then the fever came knocking.

I figure the best thing to do is sleep it off.  Kelly leaves me to then nap it out for the rest of the day, knowing we have to get on a boat tomorrow morning for the mainland.  With the help of my friend Xanax and two room fans directly pointed at my naked body, I fitfully sleep the whole day away.  By the time Kelly returns that evening I still feel like hot garbage juice, but do seem hopeful about my chances of recovery for tomorrow's boat ride.  After a long day of sleeping, I am ready to hit the sack for the night.  And then it happened.  I pooped the bed.  Pooped it real good.  The actual words that came out of my mouth when I woke up to the sensation of hot lava exploding out of me were, "oh shit".  How appropriate that turned out to be.

Unfortunately I have to turn on the lights and deal with this situation.  I briefly considered just throwing the sheets out the window and letting housekeeping deal with it the next day, it was our last night after all.  Then I figured I was going to have to take a shower anyway, so I might as well rinse the be-fowled sheets off at the same time like a decent human being.  My decency does not take into consideration the fact that we are staying in a hostel and these are communal showers.  I am the precise reason you should always wear shower sandals at hostels.  

In the commotion of feverishly ( literally) trying to clean up this "situation", I have woken Kelly up (thank god this is one of the times we've actually had separate beds).  I try to tell her to go back to sleep, it's nothing, but she is way to good of a friend and insists on coming down from her loft to see what's wrong.  Sweaty and ashamed I fess up to the soiling (plus it's not like she won't notice the lack of sheets on my bed).  So like any good friend would do for their adult friend who has just shit the bed, she reads Harry Potter out loud to me until I fall asleep on the now bare hostel mattress.  Loss of Dignity x Fever = Proportional Lowered Standards of Cleanliness.

Unfortunately this is not a Cinderella story and the morning brings more fever and nausea.  And a boat ride.  Let's be real, we probably could have played musical chairs with all of our arrangements to stay another night, but we still would have run the risk of me getting sicker and then needing a doctor.  All meaning that we would still need to get off that tiny island and I wanted to do it while I could still kind of walk.  So for breakfast I had a buffet of pills that were designed to keep your insides on the inside; Immodium: anti-diarrheal, Promethizine: anti-vomitting and Dramamine: for motion sickness.  Right, did I mention I get super sea sick too?  The dread of being stuck on a boat with a bunch of strangers with the very real possibility of an emergency bowel movement, made me covet Depends in a way I never thought imaginable.  So, I conjured up the next best thing and lined the entire inside of my underwear with maxi-pads (somebody tell me why I'm still single!).  Armed with the best artillery we had, we loaded the boat for the hour long boat ride.  I maintained the bulletproof and comforting fetal position, while the other passengers "oohed" and "aahhed" at the dolphin sitings.  Dolphins; fuck 'em.  Miraculously I composed my sphincter long enough to make it to the mainland where I promptly decided to sleep away another day of my life.  

Through this whole event, Kelly gets a special award for her patience, bravery and ingenuity, for in the end she had the best advice for the next time one of us gets a mean case of the bad bottom, "Next time, remember that we packed ponchos".  

Cocks ready in their baskets for the fights, a favorite pastime of the Balinese