I fainted in a Thai market, and threw up on a business class flight! How was your holiday?

I wonder if, perhaps, god is testing me before my 25th birthday at the end of April? Because these past couple weeks have been so unnecessarily humiliating, and at times horrible, that I can only hope there is some greater purpose to my suffering.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Before I willingly put myself forward to endure the haughty horrors of throwing up in business class on my 9 hour flight from Thailand to Australia, my life was actually pretty radiant and magic. After overcoming a perhaps reformative period of not being able to fucking eat, I came out the other side of it with more than just my appetite... My life in London was feeling pretty delicious, all peaches and cream! One would not assume the notion of a holiday could be so detrimental to my health, but here we are. My ever-contumacious body having the last laugh.

The flight from London to Thailand consisted of, in fact, two flights: one from London to Singapore, and a second from Singapore to Thailand. A grand near thirty hours of travel when all was said and done, bed to bed. Arriving in Thailand was a humid hallucination. We were picked up by one of the taxi companies, standing at arrivals, with my family name plastered across their sign.

The hotel I stayed in was more like its own self-contained metropolis, home to a number of restaurants, pools, shops, and conference spaces. Extremely air-conditioned, so my nipples were always hard! Truly, it was 38 degrees outside, but inside I was wearing my M&S cream knit zip-up winter cardigan. My body didn’t know what temperature it was at any given time. I actually spent most of my time in Thailand incredibly, uncomfortably cold! Oh, and the nights were the worstttt. I had chills that escalated into a fever in no time. With it being Thailand, there wasn’t actually a duvet on the bed, but essentially a very thin Egyptian cotton bed cover that was more akin to a sheet. I ended up folding it over itself four times —luckily it was a king-size bed, so I was able to do this. Though it was all in vain, as I was still shivering in cold sweats! One desperate night I even put a thick feather pillow on top of my body to help trap heat. That really was the rotten cherry on the cake. It reminded me of shivering in a tent at Glastonbury!

But I didn’t want to miss out on the fruits of Thailand. Despite feeling more and more feverish and unwell, I pushed through and went sightseeing. I saw the famous reclining Buddha, which was something of a family pilgrimage, as my parents had taken me to see this very same Buddha when I was four years old and the memory had stuck like a cherry stain on white linen. That damn reclining Buddha is whom I have to blame for this entire cursed leg of the trip. No offence —as grateful as I am to have visited Thailand for five days, my body is not made for non-Westernised countries or climates. I’m such a delicate ecosystem!!

Speaking of, it all really went tits up when I decided to peel myself out of bed to visit the amulet market. After reading about Bangkok’s famous amulet market in both my guidebook and hearing about it from my tattoo artist bestie, I decided it was a massive priority for me. Mystery Thai sickness or not, I was going. When visiting the reclining Buddha, I’d travelled by water bus (a boat lol). Now, I wasn’t fucking around with that again, so I downloaded the local “Uber” called Grab. Using Grab, I could catch a taxi that would cost £30 in London for £6. And the driver didn’t even try to grab me! So truly, it worked out well for everyone.

I travelled across town to this forsaken amulet market, ignoring the fact that I felt wobbly on my feet and delirious from the humidity.

I’d been at the market fingering sacred amulets for all of fifteen minutes before I began taking a horrible turn. That cold, sweaty, shaky dizziness where my legs go weak and I feel the colour drain from my face as everything goes numb and my vision blurs into obscurity. I’m familiar with the sensation that comes before fainting, so I sunk down onto a little stoop. I tried to gather myself, calm down, and definitely not panic. But I was useless at that! As tunnel vision began to set in, I knew the only way out was through.

“Shall I call us an Uber home?” my mother asked.

I numbly nodded. Maybe I can walk through this, I lied to myself.

“Do you think you can walk out to the roadside?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Though upon standing up, I heard nothing but a sharp ringing in my ears, and that’s when I felt sick and everything went black.

The next thing I remember was a strong herbal smell, the feeling of heat on my hands, and the repetitive stroke of someone rubbing my back.

It turns out the Thai locals had all rushed to my aid upon me collapsing. An incredibly kind woman rubbing my back as though I were her own newborn baby. A man spraying my hands with a strong smelling herbal tincture, before forcing my hands to my face. Through method of insufflation, this potent menthol? Pine? Lemon? Based potion stung my sinuses as it roused me. Even a passing monk(!!) paused to peer over my shoulder, while another man stood nearby holding an electric fan connected through a tangle of extension cords so it’s air flow could reach me.

It took a moment for me to register what had even happened. At first I had no idea that I’d gotten up to move, or that I had fainted! I wondered why I wasn’t still sitting on that stoop. Then I noticed my handbag, haphazardly discarded on the floor beside me. My legs collapsed beneath me, in a fashion I couldn’t naturally recreate if I tried! I felt so weak and wobbly, like a newborn calf trying to escape its gooey birth sac on one of those troubling life on the farm television programmes on the BBC.

I’ve never in my life wanted a Coke (you can’t snort), and yet that is exactly what I craved. Luckily it’s Thailand, so bottles of Coke soaked in buckets of half-melted ice are sold on every other market stall! Once I’d gained enough strength and composure to stand up, I sipped on a Coke in the back of my Grab on the way back to the hotel.

Where I flimsily folded myself in half on a chair in the horribly air-conditioned lobby. While my mother went out and bought me an iced matcha with almond milk. I sat there dazed, going over what had happened to me.

Then I figured the fact I hadn’t eaten all day might perhaps have been a contributing factor? So I ordered mango sticky rice.

The very next day I was scheduled to fly nine hours from Bangkok to Sydney. Joy of joys!

I slept like shit, freezing cold, and by now my throat had really started to throb and swell! My glands had been swollen a little since the flight, but by this evening my throat was in red-hot agony. I was really unable to sleep, too, from the nausea. This is when the nausea started.

Before my flight I popped anti-nausea pills like benzos, and benzos like candy.

By the time the plane had taken off I was five Klonopin deep. It was the only way I was gonna get through this.

We were flying business, so I reclined my chair into a bed, cocooned myself in the quilted blanket, pulled down my eye mask and my body shut down. I managed to sleep for eight hours straight, through some sort of survival-coma mode activated by sedatives and stress.

An hour before landing I was woken up for breakfast. As soon as I opened my eyes I knew I was going to be sick, but I bit my tongue. I won’t be sick on a plane. No, I can’t be sick on a plane. That won’t happen to me. I feel sickly nauseous often, but it rarely results in throwing up.

I’ll be fine.

I drank some apple juice from one of the glasses being handed out. It tasted sweet and comforting. But that comfort was a false promise. I shan’t go into detail, but let’s just say… Thank god you get a thick, duvet like cover in business class, because it absorbed my vomit like a maxi pad handles blood.

A poor, blonde, Aussie stewardess had the job of taking my vom-soaked blanket, sealing it inside a giant plastic hazmat bag, before locking the whole thing inside one of the airplane toilets! I was mortified by the prospect of my quarantined biohazard!

Throwing up in a public place, much less in the confines of a fucking plane, has always been one of my biggest fears. Well, safe to say, it is as bad as it sounds. I had vomit in my hair and on the collar of my cardigan. It was truly mortifying, but at least I was on benzos. And you know what, I was so unwell that I didn’t even care.

When the plane landed, a wheelchair was arranged to take me off. So there I was, arriving in Sydney strapped into a fucking wheelchair, like a retarded Hannibal Lecter! Though, my family and I were whisked through immigration and security at lightning speed. Which was perhaps the only saving grace in this defamation of character.

By the time all was said and done, I was offloaded from the wheelchair onto a bench while the hire car was being sorted out. In that radiant 8am Sydney sunshine I must have looked a horror.

I took a bath as soon as I could, then vomited some more in the sink. I was a shivering, freezing wreck. After my bath I got into bed, still practically dripping wet as I felt too unwell to dry myself (seriously). I buried myself under the duvet, feeling so deeply dreadful that all I could do was sleep. And so I slept all afternoon.

In denial about how bad I was feeling, I convinced myself this was all no big deal…

Well. I believed that lie right up until I flipped open my Urban Decay Naked 2 basics eyeshadow palette compact mirror, peered into the back of my throat, and discovered it was washed with the colour of blood!

So I took a costly trip to the emergency medical centre on Easter weekend at 8pm, where the embarrassment continued when they asked me not only to pee in a cup, but also performed swabs!!! And, as a lady, I do find that no matter what you go to see a doctor for, they always manage to find an excuse to give you a pelvic exam! Lol. This is one of the many moments where having had laser saved me from some embarrassment, though. I may be dying, but thank Jesus in heaven I have a pornstar pussy!

And so, I was prescribed one course of antibiotics for ten days, and then another course of different antibiotics for five more! Though after completing the first course, I decided I was well enough to forgo the last.

When my test results came back, it was revealed that I had tonsillitis!!

Two weeks later, I was recovered enough to enjoy my birthday.

And you best believe I have a hell of a lot more to write about my trip down under!! LOL