My stomach has betrayed me.

Everyone has heard horror stories about all of the bad things you can catch while traveling.  About all those people whose vacations are ruined by a stomach bug, yet I have always been lucky and had no issues.  I am always careful, but still like to go off the beaten path and try new things.  Usually nothing too crazy, scorpion on a stick in China withstanding, but still I am not one to limit my culinary experience of a new city or country to hotel restaurants.  I was quite pleased after my around the world trip that I made it through without illness and I decided a tough stomach was something to be thankful for.  I felt that even if my stomach is not as flat as I would like and not exactly bikini ready, it served me well traveling and I was thankful for that.  So when people at work told stories about colleagues getting deathly ill in India and how they would never dare set foot in such a country, I didn’t think too much about it.  Sure I would be careful, but I wasn’t going to limit myself.  And as I boarded the flight back to New York after a week in India where I enjoyed both 5 star meals at the nicest hotels and also sat down to lunches at the slightly more local (or at least more touristy) restaurants recommended by my guides and driver, I felt once again thankful for my strong stomach.  While I didn’t look forward to returning to work the next day, I was looking forward to telling all the skeptics that I had a nice trip, it wasn’t so bad, and the food was great.  Of course you see what is coming.  All things changed about 28 hours after I left India.  I got home, spent a nice relaxing afternoon and evening on the couch, and then when Evelyn came home, we started deliberating what to order for dinner.  As I looked at the hundreds of options on Seamless Web for delivery (we do live in NYC afterall), I realized that we only ever seem to order some sort of Asian when we order food for delivery.  And I didn’t want Asian.  So somehow I finally decided Cuban sounded good, different enough from Indian.  Two hours later as I curled up in misery and pain on the couch, I thought about how ironic it would be to survive a week in India without any food issues and come back to America, only to get sick from takeout.  I liked that story better than having to go into work confirming the non-traveling skeptics’ view of leaving the country.  But days later as I still could hardly eat anything but carbs and as I got random sharp pains in my stomach, I relented that in fact it was something I had picked up in India and in fact my once strong stomach had completely and utterly betrayed me.  

PS…One important lesson learned, they give you Cipro for a reason, take it.  When I finally gave in and took the drugs, I was almost immediately better.  Oh and MAYBE I also should have listened to Evelyn and gone to the doctor sooner.  Maybe.