I guess I’m going to have to stop bragging about what a cast-iron immune system I have. I’m on day four of an ever-worsening virus, party of four, in my throat.
Yesterday, at 5:30AM, I completely wimped out from my earlier resolve to head to a walk-in clinic at 8AM and wait for a doctor to see me, opting instead to drag Stuart out of bed and to my local – and very fast – ER. Be ye warned, youngsters, this is what happens when your beloved GP skips town and you forget to find yourself a new one. At the ER, the nice lady with the tan probably thought I was insane, complaining this much over a sore throat, but she prescribed motrin (basically, mega-advil) and vicodin (basically, mega-acetometaphin with a dash of hydrocodone). She told me it was viral, and on all accounts made me feel like the biggest wuss alive.
The thing is, normally, I’d agree with her, but I’ve never had a sore throat like this before. It’s like golf ball day on the putting green of my larynx. When the pain killers wear off (not that they do much when they wear ON), I can barely swallow. Everything from my ears down to my clavicle feels swollen and tender. Thinking about how terrible I feel and how never-ending the pain is, I tend to start crying and guys, I cry about a lot of things but I rarely cry about being sick. I have to feel pretty desperately ill to start up the waterworks machine.
Yesterday was this day that felt six days long – waiting to take more medicine, trying to swallow food, trying to rest, trying to swallow. The bright points in my day were when my dad came over (he was here dropping furniture into our storage unit) and for a whole hour, parent-magic took effect and I felt so much better I even laughed a few times, and when Stuart put me to bed and read stories to me. Two little bright spots amid so much persistent irritating pain.
I usually exaggerate a lot, I know. But the pain really is pretty severe here, no need for embellishment. And yet, no fever, no other symptoms, no white bumps in my throat – nothing to indicate anything more serious than “viral pharangytis”, which, trust me, translates directly to SORE THROAT, YOU BIG PANSY.
So I just keep drinking water and taking the pain killers and testing my temperature and calling in sick to work, hoping that it’s just a virus, and I just need to give my body a chance to get over it, to heal. If it’s not better by Friday, I’m performing an outpatient throatectomy.
It’s okay! I’m Red Cross trained.

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