Sick Day

Boy getting sick and feeling dreadful for a few days sure makes you appreciate the everyday healthy feeling you have. I rarely get sick since I’m a first grade teacher and you just build up antibodies to all kinds of things that get coughed and sneezed and snotted on you. 😀  I think I actually got this illness from my grown daughter. We went out to lunch 2 weeks ago and she was on antibiotics for a sore throat. I should have skipped the lunch. hmmm. It was fun anyway. We both love Rumbi Caribbean Grill. LINK HERE

So since I had a 3 day weekend, John and I went off to our cabin to read and watch movies and relax and boy was it snowy, rainy and windy. We didn’t even get to take out the 4 wheelers. I made enchiladas and orange rolls and we just holed up by the fireplace with our dog and electric blanket. It was fun for us to just hang together and talk. That’s half the fun for me. John figured out a way to use our cell phones and laptops to get Internet service without costing a dime so we could check email, shop, do face book. But I started feeling crummy on Saturday. I usually only get sick once every other year and it is always strep. I just know the telltale body aches and headache signs as well as sore throat and puffy glands. I debated whether to go back home or stick it out hoping for the best.

Brucie, the spoiled Boston Terrier…Brucifer when he is bad…

I should have gone right back home. I waited until Monday and I could not even swallow. Yucky! So I made an appointment and my doctor of course had quit 2 months ago. What is it about female doctors in Utah. They only last 2 years. My last 2 doctors who were female quit and moved out of state. My OB doctor is a female and last time I called they said she isn’t even taking more patients till after December. That was in September. She is very popular. I guess most women prefer women docs.

So I had to see the on call guy. He is an old man.  I got there 15 minutes early and had to wait a half hour in the waiting room, watching while 2 other people were ushered in walking very slowly like older people do. I wondered what ailed them. I brought my own magazine because I’m afraid of all the germs on the ones in the doctor’s office. Then one interesting article about Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the D.C. Schools caught my eye in Time magazine and I had to go over and get it anyway. I probably got another disease from that. Oh well.

  I couldn’t believe what I was reading!!! Since Mayor Fenty did not get reelected (because of all the needed changes he and Michelle made to the school system there) she decided to step down so the new mayor could hire his own chancellor. She said she would have been a lightning rod for anybody wanting to play the blame game anyway, and she had done her best to make changes against all the forces and lobbies against her.  Link HERE

I admire her.  And I’m going to join her Students First organization. Link HERE  In fact I did as soon as I got home. She is now working on Governor elect of Florida’s transition team. Hmmmm…. I wonder if he will run for president someday and she will be in a president’s cabinet someday. She does have a masters in public policy from Harvard for heck sake! Anyway, I wish her luck in her endeavors. She is one to watch in education for all you teachers out there.


I like the broom analogy….sweeping out the bad teachers…


 She said in the article the hardest thing was listening to people say that she didn’t wait for a consensus vote or buy in and things like that. She said on important things there may never be a consensus. Even when you show people all the facts, they still won’t see it sometimes, like in closing so many schools that had under enrollment and firing teachers who had missed 78 days, had hit students or worse.  I remember when our district wanted to close several schools and they had these community meetings. My husband and I went to one and we gave our opinion and listened to many others. Most people only look at things by how it effects them personally. And so I believe what she is saying. When you move quickly even when you can show why you do what you do, you still get a mess of backlash. Tough job.

Well, as I sat waiting in Dr. P’s office I could hear him shooting the bull on the telephone. It did not sound like a professional call. Those walls are thin. That is so annoying. And to have to undress down to my jeans is just ridiculous. I seriously considered ignoring the nurse, I was feeling so rotten. Then to have to sit up there on that high table, my back started to hurt, so I just gave up after 15 minutes and went and sat in a comfy chair. Then when he got off the phone he went to the old couple’s room before mine. Just great,  20 more minutes. I looked out the window. It was starting to get dark! I got here at 4:30!  Why oh why couldn’t they just call it in. I know what I have.

Oh! These are to die for….I let them rise an extra 45 minutes…that’s the fluffy secret!

 Anyway he knew what I had too.  He says “Whoa! That’s bad” when he peeks down my throat, so I thought that my prescription was an easy next step. Oh no, this is the slow talker, thorough doctor, I’ve had on call before. I guess I would appreciate it if I had a strange disease..I begged him, “Please doc, I know what I have, it’s strep throat, I only get this and I get it once a year”. Nope. No way.  The old man has no mercy. He makes me go down the hall to the lab (just like last year when I got strep) and get attacked with the long q-tip by a mean old lab worker.  I swear I almost barfed on her, but I did feel like biting off her hand. Why do they have to be so rough? Jeez, what if I had been a kid? I’m thinking…if this is your best bedside manner, I wonder what your worst feels like!   By this time I wanted to cry.

Why are they so afraid to give out antibiotics? I’m not abusing them! I’m not a druggie or a pusher.  When you are feeling at your absolute worst they want you to stand up, run in place and do push ups it seems like! Where is the comfort, care, and compassion when you need it? Why put on a gown just to listen to your heart when you barely can lift your achy arms up?  And why lay on the table, Puleeeeeeaaaase!  Give me a break old man.  So of course it came back positive. I was just glaring at him by this time.  Oh and I had to go sit in his office this time and wait again, because he was on to patient number 3 by now. Give me strength Lord.

I could hear his nurse out there calling in prescriptions for all the old people. That’s nice of her. He did have a nice nurse who made a funny comment on my weight. I didn’t take off my coat but I slid off my shoes and she thought that was funny. I told her I just didn’t care.  She laughed at that.  She is heavier than me.
So after he gave me the gosh darned prescription he said, “If your husband is feeling a sore throat coming on tomorrow just call us and we will call him in a prescription.” What the heck! Why, oh why when you are feeling your utter worst, like you want to die, like pins are sticking into the back of your throat when you have to swallow, do they make you jump through all these hoops and then just give the freakin prescription out to your non-sick husband? Is that fair? I think it should be the opposite. Sick people get a break. Non-sicks should go through all the hassle. Maybe I’ll call it in just so I’ll have a selection of drugs on hand for next year’s bout of strep.  It’s times like these I think women who are married to any kind of doctor are very lucky.  Or hunky Dr. McDreamy from Greys Anatomy would have been a VAST improvement over old, grumpy Dr. P. At least while I’m miserable I could enjoy looking at him.

Dr. McDreamy from Greys Anatomy…he woulda made my day….kinda better….

So as I walked out I asked the nurse if she would call in MY prescription so I could have it ready at Smiths when I went to pick it up. She said sure, which Smiths? The one down the street, just the next shopping center over, same street. She looked blankly at me.  (What, you want an address or something? You’ve gotta be kiddin me! It’s a block away!)  Oh, I get it.  It’s almost 6:00 and you want to go home. ” Never mind” I say.  I had also had it. So as I realize I still have a few more hoops to jump through and I feel that sense of defeated, complete and utter frustration boiling up in me. It reminded me of how you feel when you are having a baby. Nobody really helps you. You are all on your own, begging for people to make it easier for you, but nobody really does, they just explain why you can’t have this or that, when you know it would help you and why you need to do what you are told. Can you tell I don’t really like medical people? I’m not very subtle am I?

On the way out I see a pharmacy sign and nobody is in line. Can I finally catch a break? I don’t care if it costs me extra (they always say it doesn’t but I never believe them) I pay the 10 bucks for my Amoxicillin and I go home to feel miserable for another 24 hours.  Here it is Tuesday afternoon and 5 pills and a 1 substitute plan written out for my class, and 6 Tylenol later and I still feel sore and achy but a little bit better. And I realize all the days I feel great and never really appreciate the wonderful gift of food, eating and drinking, being able to be productive, move around and get things done. I’m sorry, God, for being a flake in the thanks and gratitude department. I get it now.



Not my normal happy self …messy desk, yucky throat…bad hair day….


 I’m so lucky 364 days a year to be a healthy person and to be so able to enjoy my life.  I get it that others suffer serious pain and torment, those who were all parked around the hospital near my doctor’s office.  I appreciate my mean doctor and how he needs thoroughness so he can help me exactly. I guess I wouldn’t want it any other way. Thanks to technology and science too. I was thinking that I’m glad I’m not a little house on the prairie mom because I would seriously have lost it by now, without very nice drugs, to make me feel better.  Thanks to docs and nurses too.  You guys rock, when you’re not makin me wait on a cold table in my underwear.