The Norovirus Diet

 

Carolyn J. Rose

 

On the plus side, catching the norovirus is a sure way to lose weight. I’m down three pounds in two days—just in time to get into the summer wardrobe.

 

A bout of this virus can also make you lose your appetite for some of the favorite foods you ate in the hours before you found yourself doing the tight-cheek tango to the bathroom. In my case, those were foods I should steer clear of—cake and cookies and cream cheese, fried shrimp, creamy salad dressing, and all manner of chips in crackly packaging. Yes, cheesy snacks.

 

And if you’re looking for a clean-out similar to that achieved before your last colonoscopy, here it is.

 

On the minus side there’s the nausea, sometimes only a vague feeling and sometimes a full-body, full-on experience.

 

There’s also the uncertainty. Do I lean over that porcelain bowl? Or do I sit? From sad experience, I’ve concluded that either choice can be the wrong one. But I see an opportunity for an inventor to create a bit of bathroom “furniture” that would somehow allow a norovirus victim to do both simultaneously.

 

And then there’s that strange stomach symphony of sounds, a clash of rumbling and grumbling playing at a pitch never before heard in my lifetime. At times I’m concerned I’ll set off the sensors monitoring for volcanic activity from Mt St Helens. And if I were to submerge myself in the Columbia, there’s a good chance that migrating gray whales off the coast would pause and try to decipher the gurgling message from my stomach as it works to expell the virus.

 

Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet to cure this crap. (Pun intended.) Fortunately, the worst of it lasts only 2 or 3 days. Days, I might add, which seem to stretch on endlessly as I swill electrolyte-balancing drinks and nibble an occasional cracker.