For two weeks I have been symptomatic with a respiratory virus, as I have previously complained about. I saw a doctor, not MY doctor since it was a last minute squeeze me in on a Saturday appointment, to get a strep test. I was pretty sure it was viral but I wanted to make sure. I was right, both the rapid strep test and the culture based strep test came back negative. This was good in that I do not like being on antibiotics, I will go on them if I need them but it has to be for a very good reason. The bad part is that if it were bacterial I could have gone on an antibiotic and been better long before now.
After seeing not my doctor (and not my nurse), I went over to the pharmacy to discuss treatment options. I am on meds to help me digest my food safely, the main one does not play well with others and basically rules out my taking most over-the-counter meds. He told me I could ingest halls cough drops and recommended gargling salt water and/or spraying it up my nose. So I tried the cough drops, my normal at home treatment of sore throats and coughing, and for awhile they helped but after a few days I started feeling sick when I took them. Then I started to get better and the beginning of this week I told my boss I would very likely be going in and seeing her to discuss the experiment I finished and to plan the next round of it (I am going to repeat the experiment three times, this ensures that the data I collect are* good). Of course telling my boss I was on the mend caused a total relapse and I have been feeling worse lately than when I first came down with this plague.
Since the cough drops were not helping I decided to try the salt water gargle treatment, holy crap I am never ever doing that again! At first I wondered if I put too much salt in (I probably did), so I tried plain water and the result was the same, I am unable to gargle without choking/gagging. After staying up coughing two nights in a row I got desperate and sent my doctor a whiny e-mail asking him if there were any meds I could take. He e-mailed me back, normally he doesn't since he does not want to violate the stupid privacy rules but I begged him to since I knew I would not get the call from him or my nurse, I was so excited! He instructed me to go to the pharmacy and ask for the special cough syrup that contains codeine. Being the most compliant patient in the world I did.
My pharmacists predict that while on this stuff I will be rather knocked out. It was suggested that I likely should not drive by the student pharmacist they suckered into doing my drug counseling (I asked him what he did to piss them off), the pharmacist who tends to find me hilarious added that walking might not be a good idea either. They laughed when I brought up the fact that I have my doc's e-mail address AND a blog, both of which Doc knew when he told me to go on this stuff... This of course proves that my doc is the best doc ever, he is willing to risk my stoned e-mailing him to help me survive this plague! Unless of course he is working on rounding out his psych referral... I wonder how surprised he'll be that I actually picked the stuff up, I am not really into the idea of taking narcotics after watching my middle sister and a dear friend get addicted to them. Oh well, I will only be on it for a short time, if it does not help then Doc wants to see my sorry sickly self.
And so dear readers Flat WeaselMomma and I are going on a cough syrup bender** this weekend and hopefully I will be ready to join the real world soon!
Picture Disclaimer: These pictures are totally staged, though most likely it will look like this but with me in bed not in the living room. And no Fizz I will not be making a video of me "high" on the cough syrup, it would be the boringest video ever given than my voice is shot and I will just cough and go to sleep.
~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*I used are instead of is because the word "data" is plural.
**I have been on narcotics before when I had my appendix out, they put me to sleep and make me stare at walls and nothing more. I am a very boring druggie, I was also a very boring drunk the one time I let myself get drunk (I was 23 and my mother is STILL scandalized by it and I wasn't even that drunk!). I am kinda proud of the fact that I am at my most amusing when I am stone cold sober =).
12 comments:
Party on, Garth!
Someone needs to take my keyboard away before I leave a totally incoherent comment on someone's blog... Except mine, I can totally leave myself incoherent comments! OK I better get into bed while I still have the ability to get there, assuming I still do, lol.
ok, this is some stuff that works great - if you can get past the whole "feels like you are drowning" part. you can get it at walgreens. here is the website: http://www.neilmed.com/usa/index.php
hope it helps, oh and btw what the heck are yall doing up at 3:30 am and 4:39am??? you are supposed to be resting! course wM is crazy & getting up that early is probably normal for her :)
After the salt water gargling incident I dunno about snorting it ;). It is only very recently (as in this past night) that the plague has moved into my nose, if it continues then I will definitely consider snorting the saline thing, I will NOT be a happy camper if I do (I hate the water up the nose feeling) but it might be worth a try, thanks =). I think the cough syrup is helping, it better at over $10 for that little bottle!
I'm going to guess that WeaselMomma got up early, makes more sense than she stayed up late given her reverse vampire hours. As for me I have vampire hours, I've been trying to get on a better schedule but it is very difficult for me for various reasons. Last night I was planning on using the syrup to knock myself out early but then got caught up in doing all the last minute stuff in case the syrup really knocked me out. It is knocking me out but not too bad. OK back to bed with me, brain losing ability to focus and produce coherent thought, lol.
You need to keep the cough medicine under lock & key. FWM is not to be trusted.
When I was at work she got into my liquor cabinet and taught the boys how to make "Irish" Coffee and other libations!
Come get your bling!
Did we OD on the cough syrup?
Bad Momma - So that's why the bottle ran out so fast!
Not Flat WeaselMomma - No we've just been sleeping a lot, and trying to will this virus away so I can take a week vacation after my 3 weeks off work sick (my boss is the most insanely wonderful person to ever exist! That and she doesn't trust me not to die, cut your finger open at work and have her have to take you to the ER one time and you are labeled for life...). And trying to decide what to write about for what may be the best blog award I've encountered and am so happy to have received (thank you so much!). And I will also fess up to looking like death warmed over and the posts I have planned involve pictures of me and FWM (who looks just as fabulous as always!)
And since you twisted my arm, I am competing with Jim as to who is the worst FWM participant, the one who hasn't posted about her in like a year or the one that stole her and went into quarantine and got her addicted to codeine... Crap you better not let Nonna host, if she is as competitive as she says she is I think we won't be watching her blog but rather the news for updates on her and FWM's adventures!
So I thought I would check in on you on your blog since you have been absent from the lab! I hope you start feeling better, and thanks for not spreading it to the rest of us!
Aww, that is sweet, thanks =). I think I am on the mend, though I am scared to admit it since I e-mailed boss lady and told her I would be coming in last week Tuesday since I was feeling sooo much better and then I coughed literally all night long and was a wreck from then until about now. Still sick but there seems to be an end to it! Congrats on not licking the peptone tubes I made while sick, it was so a safety test and since you did not get the plague you passed, I trained you well. And I was totally right on who was Fake Karen, I stopped by to inspect the lab and make sure our empire was running effectively in my absence and called her "Fake Karen" and she totally did not deny it! We should all call her that from now on as punishment and because it amuses me greatly =).
so this is where you've been lurking! i was worried you might have be quarantined by the cdc. i have been considering offering FWM a visit, but i know how bad of a procrastinator i am, and i's scared i wont follow thru :) course if she was to just show up here at my house one day i guess i would have to do something really good..uhm..bad to beat yall :p
Hello thr, htanx a lot for this blog ....... This is what I was looking for.
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