Friday, January 19, 2007

Death Warmed Over

That's how I feel. Although this is another one of those sayings I don't get. I thought I would stick with the theme for another day. I am seriuosly ill. I don't think I've ever been this sick. If I have, I don't remember it. Yesterday I called my doctor because the fever would not go down and the pain in my throat was unbearable. Now I am used to having pain. I have severe pain every single month before my period because of the endometriosis. This throat pain makes that pain seem like a walk in the park. I can barely manage to swallow water. It hurts that bad. So I called the doctor and told the nurse my symptoms. She calls me back later after talking to the doctor and tells me he's pretty sure it's not Strep throat. He said it is a bad case of the flu. What? If this is the flu, then I haven't ever had the flu before, because I have never in my life had a sore throat like this. Ever. And I have never had a fever this high for so many days in a row. If I take Advil every six hours I can keep the temp down to 101.5. If I forget to take it, or it starts to wear off, my temp skyrockets to betweeb 102 and 102.9. But what am I gonna do, he's the doctor right? I tried to keep the pain in my throat manageable with Advil, warm liquids, and copious amount of popsicles. But the pain is still horrible. I was up most of the night. It is awful. So today I called the doctor's office again and told them I can't take this pain and if they can't see me today then I'll go to a walk in clinic. They managed to squeeze me in. He still says it isn't Strep. They didn't do a rapid strep test because he is certain in is not strep(and he says those tests aren't reliable). They did a throat culture intstead, which will take two days to get the results. I can't have this pain for two more days. I can't. I have had Strep two other times. Both times I did not have the common syptoms(white patches on the back of the throat, swollen lymph nodes). The only symptoms I had were a severe sore throat and high fever. In fact I think the last time I had a fever this high was when I had strep throat. So we'll see. If it isn't Strep then he said I should start feeling a little better tomorrow. Please let that be true. Oh, and he says that this strain of flu is so bad that I need at least seven days to recover before going back to work. I have been home for three days now. I almost laughed out loud. That would mean I wouldn't be going back to work until next Wednesday. Um, not. Do you have any idea how much my boss would freak out if I took that much time off for the flu? She had Cancer, for goodnes sakes. For now I'm going to take it one day at a time. Joe won't let me go back to work until I am completely well. He is quite worried about me and has been takin such good care of me. I am very lucky in that respect.

P.S. does anybody know if it is possible to OD on that Chloraseptic throat spray? Because it is the only thing keeping me sane right now and I am using it copiously.

3 comments:

Joannah said...

I'm so sorry that you are so sick. Take good care!

fuzzandfuzzlet said...

Hmmmm I am still willing to bet it is strep. Your symptoms are exactly how I react to strep.

I am a tough gal. I don`t give in to illness. When I was working I used exactly 5 sick days my entire working life ( 3 of those for strep) but strep KNOCKS ME ON MY BACK.

I get such violent shivers with strep that it forces air into and out of my diaphram (sp?) I make these harsh grunting noises I can not control. My throat will be so sore I can not eat ( trust me, I am an avid eater) I force down ice cream trying to numb my throat a tiny bit. I don`t usually get the traditional white patches.

I have heard of the rapid test missing early strep, but not having a false positive.

DH is right to take good care of you. If it is the flu it is a serious strain. If it is strep well strep used to kill people.

No you can not OD on throat spray. My DH uses it all the time. He does a nightly squirt even when well. ( I think he thinks it helps prevent snoring LMAO... it does not!)

Now I am curious, update when you find out.

M3 said...

Take good care of yourself - sounds nasty! When I had the hideous not-strep throat thing this past year my friend Lisa (a singer) recommended a tea called Throat Coat. You can check it out here:
http://www.tealand.com/ThroatCoat.asp

They carry it in a bunch of local stores near me. It helped!