After being ill for two weeks, I was finally feeling great this weekend. I went to a fantastic a cappella concert and visited a college for my job on Monday. My voice started to sound like mine again, and I was excited to really throw myself back in to my work with a healthy self. On Tuesday, I felt a little off, but after a quick temperature check and a hot shower, I felt fine. I worked and worked, but throughout the day, I started to fade. During lunch I had a lot of trouble swallowing my food. I joked around with some people at work saying I thought I was having a "relapse." I should not have jinxed it.
By the end of the day, my head was buzzing. I even got lightheaded at one point. So, I made sure to stop by the drug store on the way home to pick up some generic medicine of a certain daytime and nighttime variety. By six o'clock I had a 101 temperature, and I decided it would be best for everyone if I stayed home from work the next day. I hoped that with a good nights sleep and some medication, that I would start to be on the mend.
Today, I woke up early with my throat calling the shots. It prodded and seethed. It swelled and sent invisible daggers in to my neck when I swallowed. I finally got up and took another generic nighttime dose, and tried to get a few more hours of sleep. By late morning, I knew I needed to find a doctor. I do not have one established where I'm currently living, so I decided to try and see if a doctor would actually see me today. After reading several reviews on doctors in the area, I felt like I had found one I liked. But when I called, the woman said I wouldn't be able to be seen today and recommended a walk-in clinic in the area. That's fine. I understand that there are only so many slots opened during the day and only so many doctors, but it still is a little unsettling that a person cannot see a family practice doctor in the same day. Must we crowd the hospitals and walk-in clinics? Is this a sign of things to come? However, I will leave my rants for another time. Another doctor's office that was recommended to me is not taking new patients, even though it had listed it was on my medical insurance's providers directory. Great. So I decided to go with the walk-in clinic.
I found the office next to a coffee and donut place with a drive through. You can only go one way around this complex, and the way that I needed to go was blocked by a car sitting in the drive through and a large semi-truck unloading boxes. To make matters worse, after the person in the drive through received whatever was ordered, that person sat there for another four minutes. Finally, I made it to a parking space and proceeded to wait for about forty-five minutes to be seen.
Luckily, the PA I saw was very thorough and understanding. We just can't figure out what's wrong with me. Strep and flu tests came back negative, so she wanted to get some blood work done to make sure there wasn't a worse infection looming in my body. I am afflicted with auto-immune diseases, so one can never be too careful.
At this point, I was in need of another dose of medication, but didn't bring it with me to the doctor's office. My temperature was back up to 100.5, and I was just out of it. I had to wait a little to get the blood work done, and I almost fell asleep all snuggled inside the winter coat I wore to the doctor's office. I was taken back to a room where they will have two patients at a time getting blood drawn. Now, I've had to get blood drawn often in my life. I get blood work done every three months right now because of medication that I'm on. I don't have a problem with needles, and I don't have a problem with blood. We got through the first three vials of blood, and then, the woman brought out the blood culture. I thought I had certainly had a blood culture in my life, but no, apparently not. For the blood culture a glass bottle that looks somewhat like a tabasco bottle is used as the vile and a strange concoction of fluid and bits of stuff float inside. It basically looked like a salad dressing that desperately needed to be shaken. Then the bottle is hooked up to the tube that creates a vacuum to draw the blood out from my vein to the needle. So here we go: small veins, an awkward bottle shape, and a need for a large amount of blood to get in to the bottle. All of the sudden, I see the needle just slip out of my arm because the woman couldn't maneuver the bottle in to a good position. They wipe up the blood that spilt on my arm and have to scratch that blood culture. I realize then that she is going to have to go in to the same arm, again.
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| Yep, that's it. Wouldn't want to dip my bread in that. |
She searches slowly with the needle for a new site, pulling and pushing very slowly so as not to cause a lot of pain. It still was painful, and after a while, I just started to lose it. I was tired, achey, and frustrated that my small veins wouldn't yield any blood so that I could just get this over with. And to top it off, another patient was in the room watching my little breakdown. Great. "I'm fine!" I wanted to shout. But my throat hurt too much and I was too tired. I had to get through it. Then I realized they needed to do a blood culture in my other arm.
Thankfully, this went a little faster, and the needle did not slip out of my arm. But the women helping me (yes, another woman had to be called in) were worried and brought me some apple juice. Which was probably for the best since I had just given a lot of blood and needed to drive myself home. I really did feel ridiculous, and even writing about it now, I'm thinking, no one cares! Get over it! And I will. But when you are still wallowing in your own illness, it's hard to let these things go. I question my ability to live on my own. It is awful to be sick by yourself. There's no one to run to the store for you, or cook something for you, run a bath, wash dishes, making sure you're taking your medicine at regular intervals, nothing. And it's not that I can't do that. I'm doing it. I just had a moment today where I thought I couldn't. I thought, I can't make it today by myself, and I'll just drive all the way to my parents home. But I didn't. I stuck it out, and after a few moments of questioning my personal life, my ability to do a good job at work, and the ability for my immune system to ward off anything that comes my way, I'm taking a step back. And a deep breath.
I'm still waiting for my results, and I still feel awful, and I won't be able to go to work tomorrow. But I'm relaxed, for now, and I'm accepting that at this point, there is nothing else I can do. Absolutely nothing. Unless I can figure out how to get rid of the gnats that have chosen to inhabit my apartment. I will save that for another day. Sure, maybe I doubt what I'm doing, how effective I am, and if I'm capable of living on my own, but, everyone does that. You don't actually ever feel like an adult. You just have to do adult things.
All in all, being sick, and I mean all out, can't get up, aches and chills sick, sucks. Stay healthy everyone.
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