My Friend’s Vomit Makes Me Sick

At school today, my friend got sick,

and vomited right on me, ick!

He threw up not just once, but twice.

It smelled so bad; it wasn’t nice.

But worst of all, the stuff soaked through

my clothes, and made me feel sick too.

I held it in, but I must say,

I felt like throwing up all day.

Why is it my friend’s vomit will

disgust me so, that I feel ill?

One whiff of barf is quite enough

to make me want to heave my stuff.

You vomit to eliminate

bad things you accidentally ate:

bacteria that sometimes hide

in meats that aren’t cooked inside,

or nasty germs we know can linger

on a dirty hand or finger.

(They get swallowed when you touch

your fingers to your mouth too much.)

Now, vomiting is the domain

of the medulla of the brain.

Medullas control many things,

but two spots are for vomiting.

These “vomit centers” will react

to germs in your digestive tract,

or almost anything at all

that irritates the stomach wall.

So while it feels bad, vomit’s good,

because upchucking is what should

remove those germs and poisons, too,

that don’t belong inside of you.

Now, sometimes, things that frighten you

can make you want to vomit too.

It’s one way for your brain to say,

“That’s scary, so get far away!”

Plus, spinning that gets your head reeling

can give you a nauseous feeling,

and gross things you see or smell

can trigger vomiting as well.

The reason someone else’s spew

can make you feel so nauseous too,

is this ensures that you won’t pick

that nasty food that made them sick.

No doubt about it, it’s real tough

to be close by when friends throw up.

That stinky vomit’s gross, it’s true—

but think how it’s protecting you!

COOL FACTS ABOUT VOMITING

• Fulmar chicks spew out vomit to keep predators away. They can easily shoot a stream of vomit more than six feet, right into the face of an invading crow or hawk. Fulmars are gull-like birds from northern Canada. Adult fulmars can shoot their vomit too, but they don’t have the perfect aim of the chicks. That aim is important, since fulmar chicks cannot fly away from predators. A shot of stinky stomach oil is a good way to fight off anything that wants to eat a chick.

• When humans vomit, the walls of the stomach and the esophagus don’t contract; they actually relax. It’s the walls of the abdomen, the part of the body that holds the stomach and intestines, that contract. This contraction pushes on the food in the stomach and upper intestine, forcing it up the esophagus and out through the mouth. Vomiting is a reflex, which means we can’t voluntarily control it.
• Cows, sheep, goats, giraffes, and many other hoofed mammals voluntarily move swallowed, partly digested food from the stomach back up the esophagus. This process is called regurgitation. It involves contracting special muscles in the wall of the esophagus to force food up instead of down. Animals that do this are called ruminants. They eat grasses, shoots, and leaves, which have lots of tough, hard-to-digest cellulose. To break down all their food, ruminants must chew and swallow the food more than once.

  The first time the chewed mass goes down to the stomach, it is mixed with special cellulose-digesting bacteria that start the digestion process. But the bacteria can’t get into all of the mass until it’s chewed some more. So next, ruminants regurgitate the partly digested food, or cud, back up to their mouths. Then they chew and chew and swallow it back down again. Regurgitation is repeated over and over until the food is fully digested.

• What makes you feel like vomiting when you are scared of something, like taking a big test at school or giving a speech in front of the class? The reason is that fear sets off a stress response in your brain called the “fight-or-flight response.” This causes your system to release stress hormones that get you ready to fight or run away. Stress hormones affect many parts of your body. Some of the things they do include making your heart beat faster, speeding up breathing, and sending extra blood to the muscles of your legs and brain. At the same time, less blood is sent to your digestive tract. This makes it hard for the stomach and intestines to do their jobs, and they can become irritated. Your irritated digestive tract can make you feel like you want to throw up.