Hello there! Long time, no post. I promise, it’s not you, it’s me. Just a note: this post contains some descriptions of sickness, including vomit. If you’re squeamish, you may want to pass.

When I was due to leave Bali, I woke up in the morning absolutely freezing cold. If you’ve ever been to Bali, you know that something is seriously wrong if you are freezing, given the temperature is never below 25 degrees C. I was so cold, I had to dig out the cold weather gear I’d packed in my suitcase for my return to Canberra and put that on before trying to get some more sleep. When I woke up later that morning, I felt miserable. Not only was I constantly shivering, but my broken ankle had flared up in pain for some reason, and as a result I couldn’t walk properly. After managing to eat a bit, I was able to quickly pack up my entire room. My flight was due to leave at 11pm, and I’d booked my taxi for 7pm, so I’d get to the airport by 8 – 3 hours in case anything went wrong. Even though I knew I was going downhill, I figured I just had to make it onto the flight, and I could sort everything else in Australia.

I didn’t have to wait until the airport for things to go wrong – around lunchtime, I started vomiting. When I say “started”, I meant that I did it once, didn’t feel better, and then every 30 minutes after that I kept spewing. I knew I needed help, so I booked an appointment at a local medical centre that I’d been to before. I tried to get up off the floor to get there, thinking I’d take a motorbike-taxi, and eventually I realised I wasn’t going to be able to get there. Instead, I asked if they could come to me. Around 2/3pm, the doctor and nurse arrived, and they opened the door to my room to see me there, in only my underwear (I had shed all my clothes to get my temperature under control) and spewing into my rubbish bin. They checked me over a few times, then tried to get an IV drip into me. I was so dehydrated from not being able to keep any liquids down that this was an ordeal – at least 7 different attempts at getting the needle in, and every time we swapped arms the movement made me dizzy and vomit again. Eventually, we succeeded, and they started putting fluid into me, while I came in and out of consciousness.

Around 6pm, I felt good enough to eat a banana and a basic milky bread. I reorganised my taxi to pick me up at 8 – leaving me just 2 hours at the airport, but I thought that would be ok. I came off the IV fluids at 7.45pm, had a quick shower, threw the last things into my bags, and then hopped in the car, trying not to be sick as we headed south to the airport. Once inside, I checked-in, and thankfully my Indonesian skills came in handy as I think the check-in person was impressed and as a result gave me an entire row to myself – and for an overnight flight I couldn’t have been more grateful. I had about 20-30 minutes inside the terminal, where I ate some more of my bread and drunk some water, before making it onto the flight.

The flight itself progressed fine, I lay down to sleep for most of it and only woke up once shivering, and then I took some panadol and went back to sleep. I must have looked like a mess as the flight attendants (bless them) kept checking in on me to make sure I had everything I needed. I transferred at Melbourne and made it safely home.

What was it? The Indonesian doctor thought it was a bacteria in something I ate (hence the vomiting). My Canberran GP thought it was a viral infection of some kind, since it also gave me a fever and cough. I’m not ruling out the potential for some kind of terrible luck of trying to deal with two of these things at the same time. It knocked me out for about a week afterwards, which was just not fun at all. But thankfully I fully recovered and am back to my usual healthy self.

That was one reason why I haven’t been posting much – the other was that immediately after I got back I got straight into the Music Festival. I’m keen to share some more posts now that everything has quietened down, so bare with me while I get my schedule back under control.