I will spare you the graphic details. Unless you are absurdly lucky, or party to a pact with the devil – send me over the paperwork; I'll happily sign – the last thing you need is detail. Whatever your name for the damn thing – the norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, a trip to the very jaws of fiery hell – you've been there, if not this season, then perhaps last season or the one before that. Along with death and taxes, a day or two gripping the porcelain is one of life's rare certainties. It came to me, as it did to you and you and you, just a few weeks ago.

For anybody with what might politely be called an enthusiastic approach to dinner time, and less politely might be called an instinct to greed, it can be a disconcerting experience. Not only do you lose your lunch. You lose the sense of self. Part of the trauma is its stealthy arrival, like high flat clouds spilling softly into a blue summer sky, so that you don't notice the change in the weather until the sun has finally been smudged away. It came to me over a snatched supper, late one night, at a bar. I ordered the food with enthusiasm. I always try to put my back into it. Quickly I noticed that these dishes I so loved had become relentless, tiresome, an unwelcome part of the evening. Like the driver who puts their foot on the accelerator because they've noticed they're almost out of petrol I began shovelling the food away as quickly as possible. To leave it uneaten would have been to acknowledge what my body had already clocked: all was not well.

And then within a few hours, it begins. You ride the waves. You clutch the bedsheets. Even the most atheistic of us begin to wonder whether we have, in some way, offended the gods. Deliriously, we promise to make amends for our debauched behaviour if only this hell will lift. We will kick the pork scratching habit between meals. In fact, we'll eat nothing at all ever again from now on. How does that sound?

That is the truly bizarre bit about the experience: for a day or two, eating isn't just an uncomfortable thought; it's an impossibility. The me I know has gone. Most of the time, when I'm not eating, I'm thinking about what I will soon be eating. As I type, for example, there's lamb breast in the oven, braising. Once done I'm going to press it in the fridge for a few hours and then sear it off. I've been thinking about these breasts for days. I'm that kind of chap. I always have one of these fantasies on the go. Now, lying in bed, a deckhand on the good ship nausea, I try to fantasise. I think about crisp bacon. Frying bacon is the thing most likely to convert vegetarians. It's the test. Quickly I turn my head to the wall, as if trying to glance away from my own fat-slicked thoughts. The war of my gastrointestinal tract has further to run.

And then slowly, surely, it begins to subside. The waves soften and flatten. The tourniquet around the head loosens and drops away. Suddenly, rising from downstairs, you smell something: the high sooty tang of toasting bread. You think about smearing a little butter into its warm cracks, about the way it will melt. You think about Marmite and realise your body craves salt. It occurs to you that you might be better. And gently you whisper: hello me. God, but it's good to see you.