How is this for a cosmic joke?
So, three weeks ago I get sick. Sinus pressure, drainage, snotty, ear pain, the worst sore throat I've had in years. I think about going to the doc, remember how shitty the insurance is, and change my mind. I figure, hey, my snot is clear, which means no infection, I'll just wait it out.
Fine and dandy. But if it ended there, then this would be a hella short entry right? I start to feel better, cough for a day or two, nothing big. Then my little cough turns into this hacking, deep, SCARY chest cough. I put up with it for more than two weeks, waiting for it to get better. Finally, at the urging of my co-workers I concede defeat, and go to the Wellness Center, where they assured me that it was just sinus crud, and to take Mucinex DM for the cough. So I do.
But I'm not getting any better. I break down and go to a new doc, whom J at work goes to. (I sit in the waiting room for an HOUR PAST MY APPT TIME, but that's a different story.) The doc comes in, asks me a lot of questions, listens to my lungs and proclaims me, "fine". She wants me to lie back so that she can listen to my heart a little better, and the moment I do, the cough starts up. I hack for almost five minutes, unable to catch my breath.
I finally stop and look at her. She looks like she just swallowed a bug. A big bug. That tasted like ass. I ask her what's up. Her answer? "This is going to sound weird, but how old are you?" We establish that I was in fact vaccinated as I should have been as a child in the late 70s. She then says, "With the symptoms you've been describing, the fact that your lungs sound fine and nothing seems wrong until you started coughing like that and based on the way that cough sounded? You have whooping cough."
Yes. In fact, somehow, I have magically time traveled to circa 1941, moved to Ellis Island and became a six month old child, because I FUCKING HAVE WHOOPING COUGH. Yes, do not adjust your television sets, you did read that. Whooping cough.
The answer to that is apparently massive doses of antibiotics, which I started tonight. She said that the odds of anyone catching it form at this point are TINY, and I already sanitize the hell out of myself, but I'm going to avoid everyone at work as much as possible until day four of the antibiotics, when there is apparently roughly 0% chance that I could be contagious. (To quote, you wouldn't infect a six month old with HIV, that's how not contagious you'll be.)
Apparently the tests for it are unreliable at worst (growing bacteria on a plate), and expensive as hell at best (take a sample from me to chase down the DNA of the organism), so she just dosed the shit out of me with antibiotics, gave me a nasal spray for the sinus swelling and sent me on my way.
Fucking whooping cough.
Why does the cosmos hate me?
Fine and dandy. But if it ended there, then this would be a hella short entry right? I start to feel better, cough for a day or two, nothing big. Then my little cough turns into this hacking, deep, SCARY chest cough. I put up with it for more than two weeks, waiting for it to get better. Finally, at the urging of my co-workers I concede defeat, and go to the Wellness Center, where they assured me that it was just sinus crud, and to take Mucinex DM for the cough. So I do.
But I'm not getting any better. I break down and go to a new doc, whom J at work goes to. (I sit in the waiting room for an HOUR PAST MY APPT TIME, but that's a different story.) The doc comes in, asks me a lot of questions, listens to my lungs and proclaims me, "fine". She wants me to lie back so that she can listen to my heart a little better, and the moment I do, the cough starts up. I hack for almost five minutes, unable to catch my breath.
I finally stop and look at her. She looks like she just swallowed a bug. A big bug. That tasted like ass. I ask her what's up. Her answer? "This is going to sound weird, but how old are you?" We establish that I was in fact vaccinated as I should have been as a child in the late 70s. She then says, "With the symptoms you've been describing, the fact that your lungs sound fine and nothing seems wrong until you started coughing like that and based on the way that cough sounded? You have whooping cough."
Yes. In fact, somehow, I have magically time traveled to circa 1941, moved to Ellis Island and became a six month old child, because I FUCKING HAVE WHOOPING COUGH. Yes, do not adjust your television sets, you did read that. Whooping cough.
The answer to that is apparently massive doses of antibiotics, which I started tonight. She said that the odds of anyone catching it form at this point are TINY, and I already sanitize the hell out of myself, but I'm going to avoid everyone at work as much as possible until day four of the antibiotics, when there is apparently roughly 0% chance that I could be contagious. (To quote, you wouldn't infect a six month old with HIV, that's how not contagious you'll be.)
Apparently the tests for it are unreliable at worst (growing bacteria on a plate), and expensive as hell at best (take a sample from me to chase down the DNA of the organism), so she just dosed the shit out of me with antibiotics, gave me a nasal spray for the sinus swelling and sent me on my way.
Fucking whooping cough.
Why does the cosmos hate me?