Does anyone watch that tv show called "
House"? TubaDad and I are addicted to it. It's a medical investigation show where these whip-smart doctors try to figure out what's wrong with people who have all sorts of seemingly random but secretly connected symptoms. It's gooooooood! Well today, instead of the relaxing golf day TubaDad envisioned, we had a real-life House experience.
It all started back on Wednesday when I came down with a wicked sore throat. Seriously, it was like someone lit the back of my throat on fire. Poor deluded TubaDad immediately tried to get me to go to the doctor, citing Strep and all sorts of dire consequences from neglecting my health. But obviously it was a no go. I'm nothing if not stubborn. And without gushing blood or actual bones protruding from the skin, well, good luck.
Four days later, however, when the fire hadn't subsided, and I was having trouble swallowing without crying a little, I finally relented and we drove dejectedly to the local urgent care clinic. I got a nice doctor, Dr T, and told him about my misery, including the weird but probably totally unrelated lower back pain I woke up with this morning. Dr T ran a few tests, starting with the dreaded throat culture for strep where they try their damndest to make you throw up by holding down your tongue and ramming a cotton swab around the back of your throat. Afterwards he said he was all done and I did a great job. And I sheepishly replied "you mean great except for the part where I grabbed your hand and tried to yank it out of my mouth?" Yeah. Well...
Anyhow, the strep test came back negative (what
evah), but the pee-test (is this too much information?) got them a little alarmed. Apparently I had a bunch of blood in my urine (gawd, I'm sure
that must be too much info, right?). So Dr. T came back in with a set of questions that would have made Dr. House proud. They were kind of bizarre, and my favorite was "well we're pretty sure you haven't recently been
wading in the Nile River, right, haha?" Um, nope, not this week. Then they x-rayed me to rule out kidney stones (and of course I sweet-talked Dr T into helping me take a picture of it to cheer up poor TubaDad who had now been slumped in the waiting room for 2.5 hours). And then they sent me home with a prescription for heavy-duty throat drops (hellllo liquid Vicodin!) and told me they'd set up some kind of culture that would take a few days and call me back in if that didn't solve it. Alrighty then...
Back on the road and on our way to See's Candy (purely for medicinal purposes) TubaDad remarked that maybe I should have told them I'd spent the last week prowling around granite warehouses running my hands over kitchen counter slabs that had just been shipped in from China and Brazil and sprayed down with rat poison. Oops, ya think? Oh well, I'll mention it when they call me back. If anyone else has any theories in the meantime, lay 'em on me. Now I'm off to go cuddle up with my new best friend, Mr. Vicodin. Take care y'all.
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