I recently came down with a bug 🐜 of some kind. It might have been food poisoning or it might have been norvovirus. It’s the first time I have been sick since 2018 and it’s the first time I have had a stomach bug since living in North Africa in 1975. So it took me by surprise. It was brutal. 7 days later I am feeling normal again. Why am I sharing this? Because I did not find information on line to be helpful. The information I read said it would be over in 2 or 3 days.

Here’s what I found to be helpful in order of helpfulness. The vomiting passed after about 8 hours and the diarrhea after 12 hours leaving me totally drained

Pepto Bismal while active vomiting and diarrhoea

Sleep. All day if necessary. For the whole week

Take Tums, especially in the evening.

Electrolyte replacement tabs lime flavour as I didn’t feel like eating anything for about 3 days. Nothing appealed to me. But the taste of these were tolerable. Even tea, coffee or soft drinks didn’t appeal to me. I did find a berry blend fruit juice that became appealing by day 4.

My first meal was 2 Coffeecrisp that I had in the fridge. Very satisfying.

Day 3 start eating with porridge… I was given cream of wheat as a child.

Day 4 Move up to plain toast and jam. I felt well enough to do a social outing for a few hours.

Day 5 try some tomato soup with crackers or some mashed potatoes and gravy with a little bit of roast beef

By day 6 I could tolerate regular cereal and more roast beef and mashed potatoes.

By day 7 I could tolerate soft drinks and a bit of coffee, more tomato soup and some sourdough bread. By day 7 I could stay awake all day and do a long walk. My sleep last night was disturbed by a homeless person who was smoking in a stairwell of the parkade and set off the fire-alarm. Such a waste of everyone’s time and energy, but this situation is not going away anytime soon here.

I did get out for a walk almost every day that was beneficial to get some air in my lungs. I was cold all week so I turned up the heat and used an electric blanket on the sofa during pm naps. I probably had a slight fever but not according to the thermometer. My heart rate was above 70.

What I didn’t find helpful: ginger tea. What I didn’t use: Gatorade. I don’t like sweet drinks.

I hope no one get this bug but apparently Novovirus is going around. It could have been food poisoning as I had my third serving of my home cooked chicken. However there have been no reports of food outbreaks so I am assuming novovirus. Since I haven’t had COVID I assumed I was invincible. Now the question is where could I have picked up norovirus? The mystery continues.