Two weeks ago I fell ill; headache, body aches and a sore throat. It knocked me down quickly and for a couple of days. I assumed I'd picked up whatever bug my daughter had dealt with the previous week and braced myself for the cough and chest congestion that would follow. But those symptoms never came. After a few days, I was feeling a little better. Early this week I felt almost 100% better and got back on a work schedule and took myself to the gym for a couple days. Then on Wednesday night I started feeling not so hot again but could not get to sleep. Thursday morning I woke up with a 99 degree fever and a sore throat and I felt terrible so I spent most of the day on the couch. I didn't sleep that night either and woke up the next morning with a 101 degree fever but no sore throat. Again, I felt terrible and spent the day on the couch but felt better in the early evening and my fever had gone down to 98 (my normal temp is 96). I worked for a couple hours and met up with some friends but got suddenly lightheaded and had to go home. My fever had again shot up, this time to 102, and everybody I know was demanding I go to the ER. Normally I am a 'wait it out' kinda guy but even I know it's not good when a fever goes from 98 to 102 in two hours time so I relented and off to the ER I went.
Do you know how busy an ER is on a Friday night? And because I wasn't bleeding or convulsing, I had to wait 45 minutes to be seen. It probably woulda been longer but my best friend told the nurse about my fever spike and they confirmed it and took me right back. Then it got scary. First, they brought a physician's assistant to see me. She took my blood pressure and some blood and set me up in a back room. Then, came a resident who took my pulse and stormed outta the room. Finally, came an actual doctor who threw all these forms in front of me, said they were gonna run some tests and, about a half hour later, started explaining what antibiotics they were starting me on. It turned out to not be as bad as they initially thought but it's hard not to be freaked out when you overhear words like "sepsis" (which I didn't have, thank god) and "advanced". So finally I am back home and with less of a fever and no pain. Still lacking sleep and still with a slight headache but it seems to be going away. I should take a sec to apologize to a friend who told me early in the day on Friday to go to the ER. A co-worker of hers recently had a stroke, so she's a little on edge about all things medical. I shoulda listened to her and gone in earlier. But thankfully, it was caught in time.
