her able hands

Okay, so I missed a day. The Great God Strep Throat brought me down, and his second cousin NyQuil Gel Caps put me under. But I had a post ready! I scribbled it on the back of a self-diagnosis questionnaire for adult ADD. See?

Does posting my messy notes from yesterday count for a post for yesterday? If I post twice today will it make up for it? Does it even matter? Am I really that anally retentive and self-competitive that I have to do this the right way? I’m pathetic. I blame it on the fever.

I haven’t been this sick in a long time. I’m so glad I decided to go to the Dr. as soon as I realized my throat was swelling shut instead of throwing a hundred dollars worth of vitamins, herbs, homeopathic remedies, essences and essential oils at it. Two doses of Avelox and I’m able to sit upright and type, although my brain still feels a bit mis-wired because I’m making a lot of mistakes. I wouldn’t inflict that on you, but I gotta tell you it’s tempting. This 132 words has taken me ten minutes.

So I suspected I had a fever coming on at work, right after we had our Benefits Debriefing from the new owners, and thought maybe I was just all hot and bothered (not in a good way) by the cattle herding mentality. But the throat was no longer just scratchy, and I was having waves of chills running up and down my body. I couldn’t think on my feet at all.

I knew for sure it was a fever when I arrived at home and stood a foot away from my kitchen door (having come home for a quick lie-down before the strep swab) and I pointed my car lock/alarm clicker thingy at the door. I waited to hear the sound of the lock popping, but it didn’t come so I tried it again with similar results—and yes, I tried it one more time before it sank in that this would take a tiny bit more effort on my part if I indeed wanted that short nap on the couch, rolled up in the thirty year-old hot pink and green afghan my Nana knit for me. When I finally managed to get inside, I took my temperature: 100.5—low grade fevers are the worst because you think you’re mostly okay, are fairly functional but still a tad delusional.

It was about a half degree higher at the doctor’s office where I waited for an hour to be seen, flipping through a July People Magazine and watching the slow parade of Pharmaceutical Representatives move through dropping off samples. I swear there were ten of them in there, and the same thing the last time I went.

I’ve never had a long-term relationship with a family physician before because I’m always relocating or changing jobs; a pattern that keeps me floundering in a sea of shifting medical plans. I always wait to find a doctor until the very last minute, when I actually need one. I always end up at some half-assed strep swab quick stop for the downtrodden, the waiting room reeking of the stale cigarette smoke pouring off of the other patients. It takes all my mental faculties to not stand up and shout out that they’d all reduce the number of doctor visits they have to make by half if they’d just quit the Philip Morris Gravy Train Cancer Stick.

But it’s a bad pattern this only going when I know my only option is an antibiotic. I’m so lucky that I don’t have any major health issues at this time, but I’m going to turn 40 in May. It might be time to start looking for a physician I can talk to, who listens, and start building a relationship. Every time I finish a prescription all thoughts of a doctor go right out of my head. I complete my ten day diarrhea, yeast infection roulette and tally ho!

People. I have not hallucinated like that in a very long time. Not since the morphine after Lila’s birth. I had Chris drive out to my job to pick Lila up from daycare so I could get myself into bed under a three foot tower of wool and flannel blankets and a down comforter. I didn’t bother taking the temp again, but I know it climbed. I lost all track of time. Tyler was in the basement playing a computer game. Chris was gone. All the lights in the house were out and I spiraled around inside the vortex of my subconscious where I apparently think my job is to stand at the center of a circle of 400 pound naked people—they with their back ends facing me—me with a stack of dinner plates. I have no idea how long I spent loading their ass cracks with dinner plates, but when it was finally over the heat coming off of my head radiated a good foot away from me.

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