Yesterday (Monday 12 Aug 24), I had the strangest bout of illness I’ve ever had so far.

It started at 4.30am, when I woke up to pee, and my stomach was rumbling, bloated, and extremely uncomfortable. Something felt stuck in my digestive tract.

When I properly woke up at 6am, I went to the bathroom, and suddenly had the thought “hmm, I think I need to puke.” So I went to the toilet, bent down, and before I knew it, was retching. I retched, and retched, and initially nothing came out. It still felt very miserable in my stomach.

“Are you ok?” asked my wife. “Yeah, I am. Just give me a while.”

I washed up, and felt I needed to take a dump, which I did with some difficulty: I was very constipated. Then, after I flushed, the thought came up again “hmm, I think I REALLY need to puke.” and this time, my half-digested dinner came out. Since we have Sunday dinners at my in-laws which end at around 7+, I was very surprised to see (and retaste) the 11+hr dinner… we had finished our dinner with durian, and I can confirm that durian tastes a lot better when it goes the right direction.

After that, I felt much better, so I went on with my morning routine. My wife said that as I was retching, our two cats were all puffed up and staring at the bathroom door.

I was so tired, but I had a design thinking coaching session to conduct. Using my parents’ car, I drove to Community Psychology Hub, and just meditated in the car for a bit, as I was really very tired.

For the rest of Monday, I went on with the workshop, but regularly took breaks as I was super tired and wiped out. I fasted for the whole day (I slept through the whole lunch hour), and was mostly drinking water (except in the afternoon when a kind colleague gave me two sachets of Pocari Sweat: complete lifesaver!)

The strange thing was, I still felt constipated, so I ended up going a couple of times to the toilet. And each time, my crap was super smelly…but I felt better after each dump. By the end of the day, I was feeling much better.

I think what happened was: on Sunday, we had dim sum for lunch, and it was very, very meat-heavy, with little vegetables or carbs. I suspect that messed up my digestion completely, leaving me feeling constipated, and stopping my digestion completely.

But that’s not all. Back to Monday, after I returned home, I lay down to take a nap, and woke up feeling extremely feverish: my normal temperature is around 36.5 or below, so often, when I’m feverish, it’s not uncommon for my temperature to read 37.1 or something: that’s become a running joke for my wife and I (we both have low body temp).

So it was a surprise to both of us when my temp was recorded at 38.1C.

I took paracetemol, went to bed early, and then woke up feeling completely ok (though tired) this morning.

Constipation, puking, tiredness, fever. How very strange.

Anyway, moving forward, I’m going to reduce my meat consumption even further.