I have strep throat. Ug. I feel like crap. I feel like ass burgers. I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. Ass burgers. Where does that come from? Ass burgers. Aspergers. DOH! :smack: Prolly how that got in my head.
So anyway, started feeling just run down about Wed afternoon, by Wed evening had a giant headache, plus aches in my neck and back. Felt like I was balancing a car on my head. Just a small car, not like a Hummer.
Anyway, got home and then felt the chills kick in and the fever hit. Running about 100deg F. And started to feel a tickle in my throat.
Thurs morning called the doctor’s office and got an appointment. Between the time I got up and the time I got in to see the doctor at 9:30 am, my throat changed fairly dramatically in level of pain.
Doc gave me an antibiotic shot and script for pills. Told me to drink lots of fluids. Yep, standard fare. What he didn’t explain is how to drink lots of fluids when the act of swallowing is torture, it’s likely to start a coughing fit or damn near retch. I couldn’t manage more than a couple swallows at a time, just enough to get down my pills every once in a while, certainly not “pushing fluids”.
Friday I was beginning to worry about dehydration and if the infection was going to get better over the weekend, so I called the nurse to ask advice on when to take more drastic measures, like going to the ER for an IV. Trying to talk on the phone - hurray. She wasn’t much help. “You can suck from a straw. You can suck on ice chips. You can drink gatorade.” Um, thanks, but none of that addresses the real problem, swallowing. That’s where the pain resides, no amount of ice chips are going to get past that hurdle - you still have to swallow.
Oh, and then there’s the saliva problem. I can’t swallow, so of course my mouth is producing saliva full steam ahead. And it’s worse than water, because saliva is kinda sticky and clingy, so it coats on the tonsils and throat and are harder to get down. I ended up spitting a lot of it out.
Couple that with rounds of sweats, and I know my fluid and metabolites are getting hit hard, but what to do? Finally, but Friday evening, the antibiotics seems to be doing some good. The pain in the throat is now not Def Con 5, only Def Con 4. I can swallow a bit to drink, though I do have to fight with the phlegm and such that drinking losens. So I have to start with a rinse and spit regime to help clear the throat a bit before I get to drinking.
But this morning I was feeling good enough to not only drink more, but actually try some soup. Good old Campbell’s chicken noodle - broth, soggy noodles, a couple chicken bits so tender they’re easy to destroy. Able to get it down, have some more in a bit.
Still not feeling awesome, have rounds of alertness and then feeling draggy and shot. Maybe not run over by a herd of buffalo anymore, maybe just a herd of elk. Aiming for a herd of deer.
Then there was this other bit of fun. I heard a disturbance in my back yard, so I went to investigate. Ready to spit phlegm on anyone I didn’t recognize - I may not have much in me, but giving them a round of this would be worth something. Instead, I found a dozen or so vultures checking out my place. That’s right, vultures perched on my roof and running around in the yard. :eek: I’m not dead yet!
They apparently had some tidbit and were playing a game of smear the queer. Bird with item would try to run off so he could set it down and rip of a piece to eat it, but other birds trying to take it from him before he could get any. Dropping, taking from each other, running around. I was wondering just what dead thing got in my yard to get the vultures in the first place, when the guy with “the ball” went hopping through my nonexistent fence, and I guessed they probably came in the same way.
So yeah, I feel like death, but the vultures are a little too eager.
Anyway, I’m rattling on, because that’s really all I’ve got focus for. Watch a bit of TV off and on, sit in bed trying to sleep, spitting out saliva - what a life.
I kinda feel like sausage - a bunch of random bits ground up and stuffed into a casing - that’s me.
