Hoooo boy, these three words got me in a lot of trouble.

I got messages of emergency and colleagues instantly blocked me from their contacts, and all the while my body was dying.

This is a bit of a long one but it's pretty dramatic. Sit back and enjoy my pain.

Morning is Broken.

So, after having a nice Red Thai Curry, I finished the evening and went to sleep, not thinking much of anything special other than the fact I had to dress formally for what would be a special day for our graduating 12th grade students.

Although I had to wake up a little early, my body had me waking up even earlier than expected with a slight discomfort, but nothing I hadn't felt before, so I made a casual remark to my girlfriend before I headed out, and thought nothing of it.

By the time I got to work, however, I started feeling these warped, twisted stabbing pains in my gut. Again, I had felt these before perhaps 2 or 3 times in my life, and they were usually resolved with incoming diarrhea.

Great. What a fantastic way to start the most important day of the school year.

Well, details aside, we got on a bus and headed over and after a bit of greeting and scouting the main hall, I immediately went in search of a bathroom so I could get it over with before the main ceremony started.

All the stalls were full. Besides, they were squatters anyway so that wouldn't have been fun.

I decided to walk around as it was simply easier than sitting, but that stabbing pain kept coming and going, getting subtly worse as time went by.

Miraculously, the halls were full of huge round-table dinner rooms for grand celebrations, each with their own private, western-style toilet. They were HUGE toilets, with all the electronic stuff, but they were clearly not meant for public, as there were cleaners and servants of a sort prepping tables and such. Each room even had their own mini kitchen. It looked fancy to say the least. I wasn't in the mood for photography, unfortunately but it was a spectacle.

Eventually I found one without staff and sneaked my way in, only to discover diarrhea wasn't the problem after all, even after a second attempt at this a little later just to be sure, despite being caught on both occasions.

Defeated, I went to the main hall, and my main, most precious student who I had been a teacher since Grade 7, was already halfway through her speech to the whole room. Despair. I only had a connection to this one student out of the lot, and if it wasn't for her graduating, I would simply have taken the day off. By the time I got to work before catching the bus, I knew I probably was in the right state for it.

But, at least I saw the second half, so I sat at the back near the water jugs for the remainder of the ceremony feeling sorry for myself, stabbing pains increasing in intensity.

The ceremony continued to be grand, with even the Chinese CEO of Louis Vuitton appearing for a Q&A session with selected students, and a number of performances from my music students. From my distant vantage point, I also saw my prize students' moment of graduation as her diploma got handed to her (this, to be honest, is rather strange to me as a Brit. I only recall graduating once - after University. Seems a bit over-the-top to do it 3 or 4 times before you even hit 20).

That being said, before it ended, I was outta there. I went outdoors and walked around the building, found some grass I could lie on and close my eyes, think about the sun's rays instead of my pain. It was at this point my body conveniently decided to give me a headache and dizziness.

_{This AI image represents my feeling at the time more than it does my appearance}

Now I knew things were getting serious, but I couldn't figure out why. I needed no bathroom, I hadn't eaten a single oat all day... what was going on??

The Afternoon

Frustratingly, I was immediately alerted we could go back to the school where I thought, at least I could be in air conditioning and my own private comfort to suffer until I could go home, and so I got a taxi with a colleague to get there a bit quicker.

From this point on, things got... really, really bad.

Fever started hitting me, and I was breathing faster, my pulse racing. I could no longer sit or stand, and went to one of the benches in the hall I mostly live in, covered myself with my jacket and tried to find comfort, to no avail.

Students came in to play music but saw me and kindly left.

The rest of the students had either gone home or gone to the prom with all the staff. There was only a handful of us here. I needed a bathroom, though I couldn't tell why.

The third floor only has the female bathroom but I figured there's no way I'm getting downstairs, I can barely stand.

It took the strength of Zeus for me to get up at this point, and I shivered my way to the furthest stall in the bathroom and locked myself in, landed myself on the floor, with the trash can I brought with me - I had started to feel a bit pukey.

But, there was no food to puke out. I hadn't eaten anything since the previous evening; 15 hours at least. But then again, I had been uncomfortable and in pain for most of that time.

By now, I was practically hyperventilating, inhaling, exhaling, every second or more. Fever was hitting extreme levels as far as I could tell, and my head was throbbing like somebody had bashed me with a baseball bat. That's the worst thing you need when you're about to hurl.

I knew that puking would solve things, as horrid as it would feel, but like I said, there was nothing to puke. So I became trapped, for a solid hour, on the bathroom floor, hyperventilating all alone, unable to see straight let alone contact anyone. I thought several times about getting an ambulance or somebody to help, but I couldn't reach for my phone.

Eventually I decided to meditate hard on the concept of vomiting, held my breath and imagined pushing things upwards.

It eventually worked... kinda.

It was perhaps the most painful vomit I've ever had, using 150% of my muscle's capacity to tense itself up for such an action, wrecking my torso in the process let alone exacerbating the already deadly headache.

What came out? Seemingly... Saliva. A white foam that, on its way over my tongue, simply tasted - and felt - like saliva. In the bowl, it looked like saliva. So I guess that's what it was. Not bile or Red Thai Curry from the night before. And not much of it, perhaps a few spits worth.

Bizarrely, however, my body immediately started to reset and calm down. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, I could breathe again. I could see. I could reach for my phone and take a suitable photo of the occasion.

I no longer had strength to stand up in such a small space so I unlocked the door, piled out of the bathroom like I had just spent 6 months in solitary confinement, and slowly got to my feet, back to the air conditioned room.

Briefly, I felt it was over, and it was simply a matter of time before I felt right as rain. Just a bit of water should suffice.

I even ate a banana.

But, it was not over. As I sat there, headache showing me what it's got, I started to cry. It's not like I was sad crying really, nor relief. I didn't feel the emotion of crying. I think it was some kind of natural response to the sheer extreme exhaustion I had just endured. I'm quite glad there was nobody else around this day, as I cried quite a bit.

I messaged the nurse for some headache meds but she said they don't do that, which is great. and I wouldn't dare eat anything more than a fruit or two, so hunger was also getting painful now.

My body was so exhausted that I went back to the bench where I first attempted to rest, and tried again. This time, I passed out almost immediately, despite the discomfort.

When I awoke, it was 40 minutes past clock-out time, and the guard was coming to lock up.

Strength was still failing me, and it took me a while longer to actually look at my phone long enough to order a taxi home - a choice that would take 70 minutes in a potentially sick-inducing car, but was at least more plausible than getting the metro, which I would usually cycle to first.

I took a black bag with me just in case. I still felt pretty woozy.

The Evening

On the way home, I fully intended to lie down, but by the time I was in a seated position, it was somehow too difficult to move anymore. Besides, the wind from the window was serving a pleasantry. Very slowly, I reached for my Tangelo and pathetically peeled and ate it, hoping it might do some good.

I wanted to express myself emotionally, as I had been alone all day, with nobody to share any of this to except my girlfriend from afar but only in the vaguest detail, so I decided to upload a picture of me on the bathroom floor with the infamous caption: Worst Graduation Ever.

In context, that makes total sense, dontcha think?

But for people without context (in hindsight this is obvious when you're not consumed with piercing pains and vomit PTSD), that looks a lot like I'm saying, well... 'Worst Graduation Ever'. Especially since the photo was dark and grainy and not at all obvious what was going on.

Moments later, I got messages from one colleague who organised the whole thing, another who knew I was sick and saying... maybe take that down, not a good time, and at least one other that I checked had already insta-blocked me.

Well this is awkward.

I made a clarification post, probably too little too late, explaining that the actual graduation itself was fantastic, but for me personally, it was the worst experience.

I am now a complete pariah at my work place, and who knows if I'll get in trouble, ignored, scowled at, or whatever else when I go back, but either way it's gonna get pretty awkward.

But to be honest, I was more ill than I think I had ever been, at least the pain levels that I can remember.

The fact that I made an easily misinterpreted post by mistake shouldn't be a reason to hate on me once you are aware of the misunderstanding, to which I already apologized and clarified.

So in my head, if they wanna keep up that charade to try and make me feel worse, then have at it lol. But yeah, I do feel a bit bad. They worked their asses off on this for god knows how long, and pulled of quite a feat. In our school, these things rarely go off without a hitch, a glitch, or some technical error of a sort.

This time seemed at least from my perspective to go off flawlessly. It felt even more grand than my own University graduation in some respects. So that kind of pressure is never going to meet well with somebody in the team saying 'you suck', even if that wasn't the intent.

Well anyway, that's the story of the day. Bit of a long one but at least you didn't have to endure what I did and are not hated by your entire company.