Tag Archives: emetophobia

Sleepless Night

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Mylee the PerpI’m embarrassed to tell you that the past 48 hours have been kind of a blur. No, I’m not embarrassed to tell you this for justifiable reasons such as I’ve been overcome by alcohol. No, the reason my life has been blurry is that two of my grandkids had a sleepover night before last and it took me 24 hours to recover.

For reasons I can’t exactly understand, Kaiya and Mylee love to sleep at our house. I don’t really get it. We do nothing exciting. But the doorbell rings and there are those two girls pulling their little Hello Kitty suitcases full of pajamas, stuffed animals, hair paraphernalia, and the like, with the happiest smiles on their faces. They run up to check out “their rooms” and make sure everything is the way it should be, and before I can say bibbity bobbity boo, one is busily preparing Play Doh food and the other is elbow deep in the Legos container. Life is good.

The biggest reason my life is a blur is that I am unable to sleep when they are guests in my house. I try, but one ear is always listening for a sound from one of the bedrooms. It rarely happens, but I’m ready if it does!

Yesterday morning at 4:45 a.m., heavy breathing awakened me from the sleep that has finally come. I open my eyes, and Mylee’s face is about six inches from mine.

“Nana, my tummy hurts and if I don’t drink some ginger ale right away, I will throw up,” she solemnly greets me.

Here’s the thing. I have emetophobia. It’s a thing, I promise. A phobia of vomiting, and I have it. I always have. God blessed me because my son Court only rarely threw up when he was growing up, and then he ALWAYS made it to the bathroom in time. I feel compelled to say that I have heard his stepmother talk about Court throwing up all the time, so I think it was simply a case of good luck and good planning. It’s okay though, because she doesn’t have emetophobia.

So I shot up like a rocket and headed her towards the bathroom.

“No Nana,” she said. “I just need some ginger ale.”

It’s 4:50 a.m., and there isn’t a ginger ale within a five mile radius. But by this time I had figured out that she wasn’t actually going to throw up (Court had warned me she had thrown up the night before), but that she had simply awakened early and wanted some ginger ale. And some company. She got company and a Coke Zero.

It is the girls’ Fall Break, so I took them to the Children’s Museum as a treat yesterday morning. Kaiya had a grand time. Mylee began pooping out about 11:30, because see above. A 4:50 a.m. rising time isn’t conducive to Children’s Museum fun-and-games. After lunching at Panda Express, I took chipper Kaiya and increasingly cranky Mylee home. A tired-looking mommy answered the door.

“Shhhh,” she said, holding her fingers to her lips. “Your baby brother just went down for his nap. He threw up all over me.”

Did I mention I have emetophobia? And now I know that Mylee throwing up the other night wasn’t just a random thing, but the beginning of an EPIDEMIC.

I have only gone through two cans of Lysol spray thus far. My house smells like a hospital ward.

Doing Swimmingly

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I can’t swim.

I believe I’m the only one in my family who is unable to swim. Don’t get me wrong; we are not a family of swimmers extraordinaire. No one would mistake my siblings for Missy Franklin or Michael Phelps. But if they slipped and fell into a swimming pool, they would be able to make their way to the side. I, on the other hand, would flop around until such time that I either was saved by a lifeguard or sunk to the bottom like a large boulder, leaving only bubbles on the surface.

My grandchildren are horrified that I can’t swim. Well, to be honest, Cole doesn’t mind much, but he probably will by time he reaches his second birthday. When they learn that Nana is unable to swim, they always tell me, “Nana, I can teach you to swim.”

No you can’t, I tell them. Because here’s the thing. The reason I can’t swim is because I’m terrified of having my head under water. There’s probably a name for this phobia. After all, there’s even a name for fear of vomiting – emetophobia. I have that too. But to be perfectly frank, I would throw up before I would put my head under water.

I have tried treading water. No can do. I don’t know why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I’m afraid that my water treading will be unsuccessful and I will go under water.

What’s funny is that I’m not particularly afraid of water. I go out in boats. I lie on floaties in swimming pools (as long as I’m not in water that would go over my head). And I love to hang out at swimming pools, though I must admit I have a phobia about being seen in a swimming suit. Flabaphobia? I can and have overcome that phobia, however, as I’ve gotten older and began worrying less about my looks.

Addie in pool

Addie, unlike her nana, CAN swim.

All this is to say that it is somewhat surprising that one of my favorite things to do each summer is watch my grandkids swim. Addie, Alastair, and Dagny all participate on the swim team of the neighborhood swim club to which they belong. It is only a few blocks from our house, so I enjoy walking over there on nice summer mornings and watching them swim.

That’s what I did yesterday morning. The sun was out and I was feeling blue because my brother and sister-in-law who had been visiting for the past couple of days had left early yesterday morning. I decided a walk was in order and elected to walk over to the swim club and watch their classes.

I sat in one of the chairs right by the pool, watched them swim back and forth and back and forth and marveled at how tired they must get by the end of their lesson. I was also struck by the fact that their swim coach must have been a drill sergeant in a previous life (or perhaps earlier in this life). My favorite drill was when she asked them to swim the length of the pool and back and if even one child wasn’t “streamlined” after he/she made their turn, the entire team had to do it all over again. And she followed through. It made me tired to watch. I wanted to yell, “But Addie was streamlined!” but I kept my mouth shut. She might have tried to make me swim a lap, and, well, see above. Fear or putting head under water.

But I was blissfully happy sitting in the sun with the smell of chlorine and sunscreen wafting through the air. Because I was sitting right by the pool, when one of the swimmers would make their turnaround, I would get splashed. Particularly if they weren’t STREAMLINED. But I didn’t mind a bit. I guess I think if you are sitting next to a swimming pool full kids and are bothered by getting wet, you should go elsewhere. Maybe shopping at Nordstrom’s or something.

I’m happy that all of my grandkids are learning (or have already learned) to swim. I am not happy about the fact that I can’t do this simple thing. I don’t know what I was in any previous lives, but it definitely didn’t involve swimming.