Smells Like Strep pt. 2

I suffered through another night of Obama campaign related dreams. My main concern throughout the night was trying to figure out the rules of the dreamworld. Was I bedridden in my dream as well? Were staffers coming to my bedside to receive advice and instruction? No, I concluded, I must have been healthy in my dream. In fact, one dream vignette involved me traveling to the house of a wealthy donor, so clearly I must have been free of disease.

In real life that was not the case. I woke up every two hours on the dot all night long to go to the bathroom and spit out the mucus that collected in the back of my throat. At one point, around 3am or so, I really hocked back and spit out a vile greenyellow glob of slime. I thought I felt something in the back of my throat tear; I assumed I had just dislodged the mucus repository constructed in my mouth. I went back to bed and tossed and turned some more, not really sleeping, not really awake.

The night before I had set my alarm for noon, wanting to get plenty of sleep, but also enough time to prepare for my shift at the Tea Garden that was set to begin at two. I woke up on my own volition shortly after 10am. I felt pretty much like shit, but I attributed that to my fitful sleep. I didn’t want to go to work that afternoon–too much homework to do–but I didn’t think a crappy night’s sleep was a good excuse to call in.

Then I tried to talk.

I just wanted to test my voice. I guess I had a suspicion that something might not sound quite right. So when I tried talking to myself, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that it sounded like I had a handful of gauze stuffed down my throat. I would say I sounded liked a less sexy, more froggy version of Brando in The Godfather. Meg later said it just sounded like I had swallowed a few ping pong balls.

Luckily Meg was awake and I tried to make small talk with her. Each word, each small intake of breath, felt like a nail file rubbing against my throat. She asked if I wanted her to drive me to an urgent care clinic nearby. I told her I was going to take some ibuprofen and I’d get back to her. Swallowing the pills was, naturally, a chore. Even getting small sips of water down my throat was a great anguish.

I decided there was no way I could work in that condition so I called Jessie, the associate manager of the Tea Garden, who just happened to be working that morning. Of course, these days my cellphone only works when turned to speakerphone, so I went downstairs, dialed her number, and set the phone down on the chest before me.

I forget exactly how the conversation went. I know I croaked through a few lines about how my throat had been bothering me for the past few days and that I woke up and could barely talk. She said something about how that was fine, about how customers wouldn’t want to be served by someone who was so obviously sick. I learned later that she had barely understood a word out of my mouth.

Back upstairs, I found Meg again and told her that I probably really should go to urgent care. I looked the clinic up on the Macalester Health and Wellness website. Apparently they didn’t open until noon. I watched an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger on CNN to pass the time.

We left for the clinic at about five minutes to noon, hoping to be among the first people their so I could be treated quickly. Meg dropped me off at the curb so I could checkin while she found a place to park. I walked inside and fumbled around the reception area before a woman behind the counter directed me to a small form that I needed to fill out. I smiled in gratitude and sat down to fill it out. Under the section asking for symptoms, I wrote “sore throat/painful to swallow/can barely talk,” hoping that explanation would spare me from having to answer too many questions.

After turning in the form, I was called up to the counter where I had provide the receptionist with my insurance info, along with my emergency contact information. I’m amazed she was able to discern anything from my croaking. Shortly after that I was called back to see a doctor. I was lead into a room where a nurse asked me about my symptoms, then took a swab of my throat to test for strep. She left to test the swab and told me the doctor would be in shortly.

The doctor came in later, sat down beside me, an immediately said “Well, you certainly smell like strep. It has this kind of sweaty, sweet smell, you know?” I nodded in ascent, relieved that I probably only had strep, but concerned that strep smells a lot like I do when I go for a day without showering. She had me sit up on the examination table and examined my mouth. “Hmmm,” she said, “That doesn’t look like strep.”

“Oh, no?” I replied.

“No, it looks like you have a throat abscess. It’s pretty serious.”

She left to get another doctor to confirm her suspicion. They came back in together, and the first doctor mentioned that my strep test came back negative. The new doctor looked in my mouth for about half a second and confirmed my original doc’s diagnosis. “Yeah, you’ve got an abscess.”

“You’re going to need to go to the E.R.” my first doctor said. “They’re going to pump you full of a lot of antibiotics that we can’t give you here. And you need to go now, because this abscess could move from your throat into your brain, and that would be really bad.”

I nodded, assuring her that I would go straight to the emergency room. I went out to the waiting room to tell Meg about this new development.

“So where’s the emergency room?” she asked.

I told her I didn’t know, she secretly wondered why she, a Twin Cities suburbs native, didn’t know where a hospital was. What can I say, I was sick and a little cranky. Meg went up to the receptionist to ask where the closest ER was. She thought for a moment, then asked what sort of insurance I had. I told her I had Anthem. She had clearly never heard of my crazy Virginia insurance. She went to ask another receptionist, who went to go ask my doctor. A different doctor came back and asked us where we lived, then began listing off different hospitals in the area. Meg said we didn’t know anything about hospitals, that we just wanted something close by. She recommended United in downtown Saint Paul. We said that would be fine. She printed off directions, we got our parking validated, and we pulled out of the parking lot, on our way to the ER.