Monday, December 13, 2004
Hobo Diaries: When Your Mouth Becomes a Petri Dish
The Holiday Throw-Down at the Mansion was indeed awesome. To all of you that attended, I enjoyed seeing you there. For those of you that didn't, clearly you should have been there.
So, at the end of the night, sort of around 4:30, I noticed that my throat was sort of sore. I figured this was no big thing, since it's been getting colder which means the post-nasal drip thing kicks in, and that can lead to a temporary sore throat. That, and we had been singing Tenacious D at the top of our lungs. (As I said, it was an awesome party.) So I figure, no big deal.
Sunday rolls around, and I felt awful. My throat hurt even worse, and all of my body was aching. WTF, I thought. This feels way more like when I had tonsilitis than a hangover. But I didn't think I had a fever - I was far too cold for a fever - and my lymph nodes at my throat were normal still, though the tonsils themselves were slightly larger. Oh well, I thought, Sunday is the Day of Rest, I'll just chill on the couch, and I'll be all better by tomorrow. One of my housemates and I discovered that all three Indiana Jones movies were playing on the SciFi channel, and we definitely watched all three (but we had both fallen asleep before the end of the third one, so we cut ourselves off and went to bed.)
I live in a big drafty house, and so I was sleeping with no fewer than four blankets and one of those things you heat up in the microwave to keep you warm. However, every now and again I would wake up freezing cold, and other times I'd wake up sweating, which would promtly turn back into freezing cold. I get up to go to the bathroom, and I notice that it's really, really hard to swallow. So I check the status of my tonsils - Ah, yes, we've hit Petri Dish.
There's nothing I can do about it at this point, since I'm not an M.D. and I can't call in the drugs that I know that I need at this point, so I go to bed. But here lies the tricky part - where do I go to get the drugs? I know what I need, since not only have I had this disease before, and I'm a textbook case, but my throat looks like a well-cultivated Petri Dish. Knowing and getting are not the same thing at all, so when I get up the next morning, I start looking up doctors in the Yellow-Pages. I can't call my mom and ask her what to do, since a) it's 5am her time, and b) I'm not so good with the talking right now. I do email her, and hope she responds soon, but that was over 12 hours ago, and I have yet to hear from her. So I don't know what's going on.
I find someone who will agree to see me, for me the mere price of $300. And I have to fill out 16 pages of paperwork before I go, so that they can "start my chart" and give me a physical. I was not 100% this morning, or I would have told them where they could put their physical. All I wanted was someone who can look at my poor, swollen, painful tonsils and give me anti-biodics. Fortunately, later, one of my housemates (who woke up late also because we partied very hard this weekend), suggests that rather than wander around town looking for an M.D., I should come talk to a physician in her office. She does work at the NIH, after all, so this plan works way better than the other one. Plus, this guy won't charge me $300 to talk to him. So I go, and I get a lecture on how it could easily be a virus, where anti-biodics won't do any good, as well as a bacterial infection. Yes, yes, I did the research the last time I got this awful disease. Then he looks at my throat. Right, he says. Where do you want me to call that in to?
The guy also tells me that apparently my California HMO also has a branch in DC that I could have gone to. (I also could have gotten my drugs there, paying $10 rather than $60.) However, at this point, I did not care. I hurt so badly, I just want the drugs like yesterday.
Moral of the Story: Eat your Veggies, Don't Party Too Hard, and Look Up Where To Go When Disease Hits Before You Need To Know. Because when you Need To Know, your brain stops working.
So, at the end of the night, sort of around 4:30, I noticed that my throat was sort of sore. I figured this was no big thing, since it's been getting colder which means the post-nasal drip thing kicks in, and that can lead to a temporary sore throat. That, and we had been singing Tenacious D at the top of our lungs. (As I said, it was an awesome party.) So I figure, no big deal.
Sunday rolls around, and I felt awful. My throat hurt even worse, and all of my body was aching. WTF, I thought. This feels way more like when I had tonsilitis than a hangover. But I didn't think I had a fever - I was far too cold for a fever - and my lymph nodes at my throat were normal still, though the tonsils themselves were slightly larger. Oh well, I thought, Sunday is the Day of Rest, I'll just chill on the couch, and I'll be all better by tomorrow. One of my housemates and I discovered that all three Indiana Jones movies were playing on the SciFi channel, and we definitely watched all three (but we had both fallen asleep before the end of the third one, so we cut ourselves off and went to bed.)
I live in a big drafty house, and so I was sleeping with no fewer than four blankets and one of those things you heat up in the microwave to keep you warm. However, every now and again I would wake up freezing cold, and other times I'd wake up sweating, which would promtly turn back into freezing cold. I get up to go to the bathroom, and I notice that it's really, really hard to swallow. So I check the status of my tonsils - Ah, yes, we've hit Petri Dish.
There's nothing I can do about it at this point, since I'm not an M.D. and I can't call in the drugs that I know that I need at this point, so I go to bed. But here lies the tricky part - where do I go to get the drugs? I know what I need, since not only have I had this disease before, and I'm a textbook case, but my throat looks like a well-cultivated Petri Dish. Knowing and getting are not the same thing at all, so when I get up the next morning, I start looking up doctors in the Yellow-Pages. I can't call my mom and ask her what to do, since a) it's 5am her time, and b) I'm not so good with the talking right now. I do email her, and hope she responds soon, but that was over 12 hours ago, and I have yet to hear from her. So I don't know what's going on.
I find someone who will agree to see me, for me the mere price of $300. And I have to fill out 16 pages of paperwork before I go, so that they can "start my chart" and give me a physical. I was not 100% this morning, or I would have told them where they could put their physical. All I wanted was someone who can look at my poor, swollen, painful tonsils and give me anti-biodics. Fortunately, later, one of my housemates (who woke up late also because we partied very hard this weekend), suggests that rather than wander around town looking for an M.D., I should come talk to a physician in her office. She does work at the NIH, after all, so this plan works way better than the other one. Plus, this guy won't charge me $300 to talk to him. So I go, and I get a lecture on how it could easily be a virus, where anti-biodics won't do any good, as well as a bacterial infection. Yes, yes, I did the research the last time I got this awful disease. Then he looks at my throat. Right, he says. Where do you want me to call that in to?
The guy also tells me that apparently my California HMO also has a branch in DC that I could have gone to. (I also could have gotten my drugs there, paying $10 rather than $60.) However, at this point, I did not care. I hurt so badly, I just want the drugs like yesterday.
Moral of the Story: Eat your Veggies, Don't Party Too Hard, and Look Up Where To Go When Disease Hits Before You Need To Know. Because when you Need To Know, your brain stops working.
