Article
‘2025 is going to be my year!’ I told myself optimistically. I mean, my calendar was chock-a-block with incredible opportunities — podcasts, television episodes and a national comedy tour. I was geared up and ready for a successful and glamorous year… that was right up until my body unexpectedly shut up shop and I was bedridden for two months.
I’ve always felt more delicate than others. I’m always feeling faint or nauseous in the heat, but now it was happening in the winter too. Soon I was living with nausea daily. Like all good girls, I ignored it for probably far too long before finally seeing a doctor, only to be told ‘It’s just stress, you just need to cut down on your stress,’ as if stress was like sugar and I was simply consuming too much of it.
I tried to cut down on my stress, but then that was another thing to stress about.
So I just kept working through the nausea, convincing myself that it’s just stress and I could just power through. Spoiler: I chose poorly.
I was in the middle of recording a podcast for the SBS when my body finally hit it’s limit. I could no longer function or control the nausea, and honestly what followed was not unlike a scene from The Exorcist! Forget the doctor, what I required was a priest. It’s a crime against the universe that a little cutie-pie like me should ever vomit, but here we are and there I was hugging the toilet as if my life depended on it. What followed this episode were two of the most challenging, confusing and uncertain months of my life. But hey, when you’re a comedian, you can’t help but find the humour in it all and have a little giggle along the way.
So here’s my guide to being sick:
‘Have You Tried…?’
As soon as you share that you’re unwell, you’ll be inundated with people suggesting all sorts of home remedies. Friends, relatives and distant acquaintances will come out of the woodwork to tell you about this one thing that their step-aunt or cousin did that one time to cure her nausea.
Please believe me when I tell you that I have tried (almost) every anti-nausea suggestion: sipping ice-cold water, sipping hot water, I licked salt, I licked sugar, I sucked on a lemon, sucked on all sorts of things! I consumed copious amounts of ginger, ginger tea, ginger ale, ginger pills, I even tried googling Geri Halliwell and taping a photo of Prince Harry above my bed. It turns out that no amount of ginger on God’s sweet earth is going to cure me, but the photo of Prince Harry did help with my libido.
Under The Weather
Through a lot of trial and error, I realized there's no cute way to say that you’ve been vomiting every 45 minutes, every day for the last 6 weeks. I usually ended up just saying ‘I'm under the weather,’ which covers a multitude of ailments and always gives me hope to one day be above the weather.
I also recommend: ‘I’ve been screaming and shouting from both ends,’ ‘I’ve been calling out for Hughie,’ and ‘I’ve taken up the porcelain tuba.’
However, if people insist on being rude and keep pressing you for details you could just vomit on them. If theatre school taught me anything, it’s ‘Show, don’t tell.’
Everything Is Completely Normal
Going to the doctor nowadays feels like a game of pass the parcel, with every new doctor and specialist opening a new, gradually more expensive mystery layer. But there’s no cool toy to discover, just another test result that is ‘completely normal (maybe it’s just stress?)’. And then you’re off to the next specialist and the whole game begins again!
When I'm sick, I hate a chirpy doctor. My GP always says ‘How are we today, Madeleine?’ with a big smile. What I want to say is, ‘It’s my third time here this week and you don’t bulk bill, so how we are today is I’m another $90 poorer and no closer to an answer!’ But I don’t say that because it’s not her fault that I feel like shit, and I forgot to send her an invite to my pity party. So I just say ‘I’m under the weather.’
I was sent to have a gastroscopy, and my gastrologist was quite possibly the most handsome man I ever saw. I thought, ‘How unfair! You can’t be handsome, a doctor AND rich.’ There should be an extra tax bracket for that.
It was my first time in a hospital and I was nervous. A nurse fitted me with a mouth guard that had a little hole in the middle for the camera juuust as the drugs kicked in and Other Madeleine emerged and took over. I proceeded to turn to my stupidly hot doctor, winked at him and said ‘Oh, you're kinky!’ as I popped the guard in my mouth. I’m sure he didn’t notice the bit of drool that came out as I did so. The results of the scan came back completely normal, but my flirting needs extensive rehabilitation and my pride may never make a full recovery.
The Bed-In
Spending extended time in bed is not as fun as John and Yoko made it out to be. For starters, I was not in a luxury hotel and the one paparazzo that did respond to my Craigslist ad left after three minutes because ‘the vibe was off’.
I was sick, yes, but I was also bored. Work as usual was definitely off the table. So, what’s a sick girl to do to keep the mind occupied? Watch reality TV of course! The best shows are shows you don’t need to pay much attention to, but can easily follow. I recommend Come Dine with Me, MAFS, Below Deck, and Taskmaster.
But my ultimate favourite is Alaskan Bush People. If you are unfamiliar with the premise of the show, Billy Brown and his wife live in the Alaskan wilderness with their expansive brood of children. It’s always a dramatic race against the elements to get the barn raised by winter… but it’s already snowing and there’s no foundation! Whatever will they do? The tension couldn’t be higher! It’s almost as if they’ve never done this before in their entire lives of doing exactly this.
I once read a rumour that the producers of the show do all of the work while Billy sits in his trailer off-camera eating fast food. Either way, it’s both a great bed-rot watch and a fascinating study of the human condition. Be careful though, Pavlov was onto something and my body now associates these shows with being sick. Even now, hearing the Taskmaster theme tune makes my stomach turn.
Friends Are The New Family
Lots of people have a family to turn to for support. I don’t have that support or safety net, but I’m okay with that. What I lack in family I make up for in friends, and let me tell you the friends I have are some of the best people around.
My friends showed up for me in abundance, in ways I would never have considered. Some people stayed with me hours or even days at a time, sleeping on my couch to make sure I felt safe and secure during the night. There were soup deliveries, phone calls, grocery deliveries. One friend even took my car to get a pink slip when it was due.
I was overwhelmed with the acts of kindness. Don’t get me wrong, being sick sucks, but it also shows you the people who care. The biggest lesson I’ve learned throughout all of this is that I am allowed to ask for help. I used to think that asking for help made me a burden, but your people want to help. All you have to do is let them.
Final Thoughts
We’ve come to the end my friends, but I hope that my musings have entertained you.
Nowadays my health is doing much better, the doctors are still unsure of the cause of my mystery illness but I'm stable. I'm certainly much more aware of my body now and I'm learning to be more compassionate towards myself.
Long term or short term, it's no fun feeling crook, but hopefully these tips can lighten the load. Maybe you are reading this from your sick bed. If that's the case, have you tried cutting down on your stress? Just kidding!