In and out of ERs four times in the past week. So, sooooo sick!
It’s some kind of respiratory infection: sore throat, impossible cough, grinding headache. There’s also some kind of abdominal pain that I thought was a pulled belly muscle but now I think…not so much.
The Mayo doc gave me a repellent syrup to treat the UTI, which kicked off a high fever. That stuff damn near killed me. Then in the middle of that fiasco I came down with this bug — cold, flu, whatever it is. My temp has been swinging up and down from 98 to 102+. A-n-n-n-d now it looks like I just broke the expensive digital thermometer, grabbing it to keep it from sliding off the nightstand. Now I’ll have to get up and traipse around the house in search of the old mercury number.
Wheeee.
At any rate, during one of the junkets to the Mayo, I learned the repellent syrup apparently killed off the UTI germs. That’s something, anyway. I guess.
The other thing I (re)learned was WHY I’d rather drive halfway to Timbuktu to go to the Mayo’s ER than duck into the nearby John C. Lincoln hospital. To wit:
In my last sally, I was so tired and it was so late at night (11 p.m. and counting — bearing in mind that I’d spent the entirety of two preceding nights sitting around the Mayo) that I stupidly decided to go into JCL, a megahospital that serves a population who largely know no better and even if they did, can’t afford any better.
I get in there, to an empty ER, and they sign me over into the care of this amazingly dumb-looking male nurse. You know how some people just emanate “stupid”? This guy was one of them. How did you get through nursing school, bub?
He’s supposed to do a blood draw (again!) and he wants to insert an IV line (why?). But he is SO totally not up for the job that within seconds he has blood all over himself, blood all over me, blood all over the bed, and blood all over the floor. “Thankyouverymuch,” I say as I’m running out the door. Onward to the Mayo: another 20 or 25 minutes of driving over empty roads.
There, staff ascertain that the UTI is gone and conclude my problem appears to be a severe viral infection.
**
Oh jeez. Naturally Ruby picks 9:00 at night to have a doggy shitfit…I do not feel like getting up to shoof out what she’s barking at. Oh well: burglars, enter here.
Cripes. She’s getting madder and madder… Grab the shillelagh! Is there ever a dull moment around this place?
Well, I can’t see anyone. Must’ve been a moth flying past.
Still spectacularly sick this morning. And now no better by the dark of night.
Truth to tell, I deeply dislike the primary care provider the Mayo has foisted on me. And it’s painfully clear no love is wasted on her end, either. Nor do I enjoy, one little bit, the 40-minute drive through homicidal traffic to get out to her office. Especially when I come away annoyed as hell.
So I decide to call Young Dr. Kildare, 40 minutes on the other side of the Valley. Start dialing at 9 a.m. A half-hour later, his phone is still ringing busy, suggesting not so much that he’s so popular the hordes try to break down his door on Monday mornings but that his phone system is on the fritz. Finally gave up.
It would help one whole helluva lot if I weren’t allergic to aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. There’s not a lot you can do to fight a fever, under those circumstances, than put an ice pack on your head and drink plenty of cold fluids. But believe me, when your head is splitting and your throat feels like someone stuck a blowtorch down there, the last thing you feel like doing is guzzling water. Yuch! I can’t even bring myself to consider bourbon & water…which is sayin’ somethin’.
My neighbor,WonderAccountant, brought over some soups and some light food. And my son showed up with more supplies this afternoon. So that was awfully nice. I guess I’m gonna have to find some way to be nice in return!
Meanwhile, I’ve fallen behind in editing a client’s book: a study in differential equations of…something epidemiological having to do with social media. Hafta say, it’ strangely interesting. But it’s damn hard to stay focused when every time you swallow it feels like a stab in the (former) tonsils.
The dog is terrorized. She apparently thinks I’m barking (or yelling) at her…dogs don’t cough much, I guess. She’s threatening to jump off the bed, a drop far enough to break her leg. If I were a responsible human, I’d get up and lift her down. But alas, I’m beyond responsibility.
Holy mackerel, there is such a thing as a “fixed-point theorem,” and by golly, it is hyphenated. Hmmmm… “The Banach fixed-point theorem gives a general criterion guaranteeing that, if it is satisfied, the procedure of iterating a function yields a fixed point…” Is that another way of saying “If you repeat something often enough and long enough, people will believe it’s true”? 😀
Hope you feel better soon. That all sounds awful.
I just wonder – would an antihistamine help a bit? No fun to be so miserable.
Yeah, actually. It knocks me out. However, I’m trying to wrap up section of a client’s math book (partial differential equations), and so can’t afford to be any more out of it than I am.
Try drinking ice water; works similarly to popsicles to soothe/quell/quench a sore throat.
Thanks! Yeah, it usually works for me, too. But I’ve been guzzling water all fday — just had my 3rd 8-ounce swiggle this evening. Sore throat did go away, as if this were a normald.
But while sitting here exploring the Hypochondriac’s Treasure Chest That Is the Internet, what do I come across but a manufacturer’s list of side effects of Macrobid: lung problems, sometimes serious enough to ead to death, characterized by sore throat and persistent cough.
Well: throat gone; but cough? Getting steadily worse. A fairly heavy-duty cough syrup was sorta keeping it under control — or at least attenuating it, but now…not so much. On on the other hand, this appears to be associated with longer-term use of the stuff.
We shall see, come tomorr. 😀 If I live that long.