Down With the Sickness, Episode 2: Revenge of the Sick

So, just when I thought last week was bad with the sore throat...boy, was I wrong.

It all started early Thursday morning, when I awoke with a pretty bad cough. I thought, "Crap, what an inconvenience." In fact, it was more...so much more.

I went in to work Thursday morning with the bad cough, thinking it was just a little bug I had probably picked up from one of my co-workers the day before. See, he had left early on Wednesday with a pretty bad cough. So, I spent the first hour of my work day coughing through a meeting. I was trying to make it through as long as I could, seeing as I had just missed the previous Friday with the throat problems I wrote about previously.

Turns out I was unable to make it through very long, as I left at noon. On getting home, I lay down for a bit...at least, as much as I could with all the coughing. I get up later that night, and find that I had a fever of 100.8. I am then faced with the decision of waiting it out and seeing if I get better with rest, and over the counter pills (stupid), or go to the doctor and get some good meds (smart). Well, seeing as I'm pretty stupid, I attempted to wait it out.

So, I wake up Friday morning, and my fever had gone below 100, which was good, but I still had that stupid cough, which at this point was causing my chest to ache. So, I call it a day and lay back down. I sleep off and on into the afternoon. When I get up, I find my fever has risen back up over 100, about to where it was the previous night. So, I lay back down after taking more Dayquil Cold & Flu (would have liked Nyquil, but didn't have it).

When I get up again, my fever is 102.8. At this point, I wise up and realize that I might need to get this checked out. So, my mother was nice enough to drive me up to the urgent care place in Fair Lakes. By the time I get there, my fever checks in at 102.4, and my pulse is racing. So, I get set up for some chest x-rays, to make sure it's not pneumonia or something equally as sinister.

Now, one of the x-rays required that I hold my arms over my head for a couple minutes while they get their equipment ready. Upon doing this, my body decides that it would very much like to pass out. How nice of it...So, the doctor and nurse give me some water and some ice packs for my head and chest. Turns out I was pretty badly dehydrated.

The x-rays came back clean, at least, so that's good. The doc then wants me to go to the laboratory at Inova Fair Oaks to get some flu tests done to make sure that's what I had. So, we head over to the hospital, and have to get registered before we can get the tests done. Unfortunately, the registration desk is closed (why would a registration desk at a hospital ever close?), so we have to go to the ER to get registered.

Apparently, there was a run on sick folks at that time, as the waiting room is full. Great...and what makes it even better is that I'm not actually an ER patient, so I get low priority over everyone else in the waiting room. Every time some new person came in, I get knocked down the list. In the end, we sit and wait there for about an hour. At least the TV was on the basketball games, so we got to see the end of the Georgetown game (that was a travel, BTW), and saw that the Gators won. Huzzah.

Anyway, I finally get registered and go to the laboratory to take my tests. Fun times. So, as we sit there awaiting some results or whatever, in case this night hadn't been surreal enough, this dude comes into the lab dressed as a penguin. Like, a huge penguin costume...I wish I had brought my phone with me so I could have taken a picture. Apparently, the guy is one of the technicians that works in the lab. I never did find out why he was dressed up like that, but whatever...

So, to make a long story short (too late!), my flu tests come back as negative, so it's determined that I have a bacterial infection (awesome!) and need to get on antibiotics. So, that's where I am now. On some powerful meds (which apparently don't put me to sleep though, which stinks) and trying to take it easy.

So, how are you?