My illness has been discovered!
When I went in to the doctor on Tuesday, they did a swab — a very painful swab — of my throat and did a quick test for strep. It came back negative. He looked in my throat, and there were no tell-tale white spots. They sent my swab off to the lab, and guess what was there. Strep.
They called in a prescription for antibiotics for me today.
My throat feels better today. I’m skipping the pain and inflammatory meds this morning. I haven’t had any throat swelling and while my throat still hurts, it is an annoying scratchy hurt and not a it-is-really-hard-to-swallow-and-I-cannot-eat-any-food-on-account-of-the-pain-and-I-just-want-to-cry hurt. I still had that last evening when my meds were wearing off.
My lymph nodes in my neck are still swollen, but my mild fever that I still had yesterday afternoon is gone.
Most importantly, I woke up this morning being able to taste my breakfast! It makes me want to find something hideously delicious to eat for lunch. Something not too scratchy.
BTW — This is the first time that I have had strep since I was a wee little child–possibly since the removal of my tonsils. I’ve been exposed to it multiple times and have never had any symptoms of having been exposed. Maybe it is some new, special strain of strep?
They will have to call it the Stu Strep Strain.
Ooooo…A plague named after me! Cool!
Who needs House? Glad you’re starting to get better. I have had the mystery strep that only shows up on a culture and not on the rapid screen before, but I’m happy to let them name it after you.
Glad you’re feeling better – so much fun being a little kid again? Oh wait… One of the joys of working in a hospital – I’m exposed to so much all the time. It’s delicious!