The Other Side.

Ah keyboard, we’re together at last.

I’ve been itching to sit and catch up with you, for some unforeseen calamities came my way last week and the only thing keeping me from crawling into a coffin was the thought of writing about them.

For they are worth writing about.

It all began on a holy Sunday.

Though what I felt was anything but holy.

What I felt instead was fatigue, exhaustion, nausea, and severe throat pain.

I thought it was strained muscles in my neck. After all, that’s what a doc on the phone told me. “Practice yoga and whatever you do, don’t shout, sing, or whisper.”

Monday rolls around and I wind up spending the whole day in and out of bed, “recovering.” Because while yes my throat hurt, I was also equally as tired from working a busy holiday weekend.

Tuesday arrives and I wake up feeling not so great. Struggling to get ready for the day, I find myself barely able to stand for a few minutes without feeling dizzy and nauseous. With time to spare before my shift, I wind up going to the local clinic to get checked out around 11am.

Course if you have any sort of throat pain, it’s automatic to test for covid. Regardless of the fact that I’ve had it and have since been vaccinated.

So I get tested for covid and then turn around and get tested for strep. If you’ve never tested for strep, it sucks. They stick some stick in your mouth and swab way back near your tonsils and if you’re like me, you might gag.

Covid test: negative.

Strep throat test: negative.

HOWEVER. The lady at the clinic said all my symptoms were indicative of the latter, so that’s what I wound up being treated for.

Calling out for the rest of the day, I returned home and tossed and turned, waiting for that blessed call from the pharmacy that my prescription was ready.

Hours pass.

Too many hours. By the time 8:00pm rolls around, my mom has driven from clinic to pharmacy to clinic again hunting for the damn prescription that the pharmacy never received.

Well great. A whole day wasted suffering in pain.

By the time I get it, I’ve been living off water and the bare minimum of Malt ‘O Meal and after I take my first pill, I lie down for the night and wait for the meds to kick in.

Wednesday morning: symptoms have worsened. The entire day is spent at home, napping and crying, in general just feeling sorry for myself. Alternating between feeling extreme heat and chills, I move from bed to bed hoping to feel better, which of course, I don’t.

By 9:30pm that night, all I want to do is crawl into a coffin. The pain was not supposed to be getting worse and here it was, getting worse. Now unable to swallow, I call my parents and wind up in the ER.

After being diagnosed with severe dehydration, a 103 degree fever, and *surprise* strep throat, I stay in the hospital for a few hours as my vitals return to normal before I’m released.

Soaring off the medication they had given me in the ER, I spend most of Thursday actually feeling pretty good. I start picking up around the house, I attempt eating actual food, and I begin looking forward to returning to normal life.

Thursday night though? Things take a turn for the worse.

Gotdamnit.

Now, I can barely swallow, each attempt feeling like glass scraping its way down my throat. Wide awake, I fall asleep around 4:30am and wake up again at 6:00am Friday morning. After that luxurious two and a half hour rest, I call my mom in tears.

Luckily, my dad is a doctor and knows a few people in the industry. So, fighting against the pain of putting on clothes, of making myself look at least somewhat presentable for the public, I meet a local doc at my dad’s office.

With nothing but a flashlight and a spoon, he takes one look in my mouth, leans back and informs me: “Yeah you’ve got tonsillitis.”

But. But. I thought it was strep?

It was, but apparently my body didn’t take to the antibiotics the first time around and so my condition had worsened into tonsillitis.

Lovely. Just great.

Luckily, this doctor was an ENT, an expert in the field of throat and I was promptly treated with stronger antibiotics, a healthy dose of pain medication, and a very entertaining use of a douche bag.

*I had to rinse my throat out with warm saltwater every two hours, that was a hoot and a half to do

And then, things finally got better.

Slowly, I was able to build up my strength, refill my stomach with some sustenance, and work my way through the antibiotics, which left me dizzy and woozy.

I realized something then: life is hard.

Life is damn hard.

And as tempting as it was to crawl into that coffin and call it a life, I knew that even through the worst of my pain, I was going to survive because we’ve all gone through something hard. We might be going through something difficult right now, and we sure as hell will likely go through something challenging in the future because that’s just a part of living and being human.

But it’s working through the discomfort, the heartache, and the pain that makes it rewarding to come out on the other side: stronger, wiser, maybe still a little bitter, but better nonetheless.

(definitely a bit bitter because someone somewhere somehow gave me strep AND I’D LIKE TO KNOW WHO)