Wow, this has been one crazy week! Basically, today is Thursday, and I haven’t been to classes all week, because I have been that sick. This past weekend, I started to feel a little weak, and I felt a minor pain in my throat, but that has happened to me before, so I just drank some water and turned in early, assuming that it didn’t mean anything, but Monday morning, I knew that I was coming down with something serious, and as the week has passed, my sore throat has only gotten worse and worse to the point where it was completely unbearable. Last night, I felt short of breath, because my throat was swollen, and it therefore felt as if it was closing up on me. I called my friend Kim, and she rushed back to the dorm and had SAVAC pick me up and bring me to the ER.
Here’s what’s really ironic about all of it, though. I was in so much pain that I needed an ambulance, and yet, I waited in that hospital for five hours until I was treated, and as it turned out, it isn’t the flu or strep or anything to that effect; it is a severe case of viral pharyngitis, which looks and sounds a lot worse than it is. It’s merely a sore throat caused by a bad cold, which I suppose doesn’t really go to show too much less of a serious issue, because I was in a lot of unbearable pain (I couldn’t even swallow), but still, considering the kind of pain that I was in, I was definitely expecting to have been diagnosed with strep.
Of course, there is still a chance that I could have it. The doctor gave me a throat culture, and the results will be back within two to three days, but he said that he doesn’t think that it’s strep, because he couldn’t see where my throat was swollen or anything, which is odd considering the fact that when the nurse first examined me, she said that she couldn’t believe how swollen it was. I’m not really sure what that signifies to me, but I just find it very odd that the nurse would say one thing (she even specifically said that it looked like strep to her), but then the doctor would say the opposite. I would have argued that point to the doctor, but it was 4:30 a.m., I was in pain, and I just wanted to get out of there, to be honest.
Being this sick has shown me what great friends I have, though. Let’s see, I have one friend who picked me up Gatorade (my mom suggested I drink that, because my younger brother and my younger sister just got over being really sick, and it really helped them) from the store, as well as cough drops and a stuffed manatee named Mr. (Mana) Tee. I have another friend who has been worried sick about me (no pun intended) and has been bringing me soup from the dining hall since I don’t have much of an appetite for anything else (actually, there are a few friends who have been bringing things to me from the dining hall), and then there’s Kim, who stayed with me at the hospital last night until 2 a.m., even though she had an 8 a.m. Philosophy class today. I seriously never did anything to deserve friends like this.
I am feeling a lot better today, though, thankfully. I have not gone to one class since Monday, because I have had no desire to leave my dorm room, and hopefully, my professors will be understanding of this. My mom brought me medicine today, and it’s helping me a lot. It feels so good to be able to swallow again. It still hurts but not unbearably so like it did before, and hopefully, I’ll therefore be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight, something I have not been able to do in two nights in a row. My hope is to go to classes tomorrow and get back on my feet, but my priority right now is to get betters, so like I said, hopefully, my professors will understand. I just figured that I’d write about this since it’s something at least semi-interesting that occurred in my otherwise relatively mundane life.
