Like a demon in the night, a sore throat has taken me over. It started small yesterday: I noticed a twinge of pain right before I went to bed, so I did a quick, cursory gargle, then thought nothing more of the problem. When I woke up this morning, it was nearly impossible to swallow thanks to incredible pain. My body had responded to the microbial invasion by creating some sort of mucus plug in the back of my throat that both heightened the difficulty of swallowing and made it hard to breathe through my nose. So I went through several aggressive rounds of gargling: hydrogen peroxide, Listerine (yeah, yeah—not very effective, but it hurts, which is good), and good ol' salt water. To ease the pain of swallowing, I sipped at a shot glass full of a 50-50 mix of honey and lemon juice, which was actually rather pleasant.
Am in the office now. I'm able to swallow and to breathe through my nose. I swung past the grocery in the complex where I work, buying honey and lemon juice for use in hot tea. I also bought salt for more gargling throughout the day. Thus far, there have been no other symptoms, so this doesn't feel like a cold or the flu. No headache, no fever or chills, no nausea, no watery bowels, no lethargy, no coughing, and only a little bit of a runny nose that is probably a consequence of whatever is generating the mucus in my head.
I'll be monitoring my symptoms throughout the day, and if things get worse, my doc is on the other side of this building. I'm sure he'll be delighted to see me. Too bad I won't have any infected fingers for him to rip open.
Good luck beating the throat demons.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's afternoon, and I'm feeling a good deal better.
ReplyDeleteI got a sore throat the day after New Year's. Within some days I was coughing up blood, and then to make matters even worse, I got Pink Eye. I thought the pimple inside my nose at a time of nasal congestion was some sort of finishing touch, a divine joke, as it were, on my misery, but then while I was on antibiotics, the back of my throat swelled up. I felt like I had a golf ball in my throat. Eventually, the antibiotics worked, and the intense pain in my throat subsided to merely a dull soreness--this lasted until two days ago, when I woke up with full-on intense pain in my throat. Last night, the pain moved to only the left side of my throat, but it also moved to the inside of my left ear. That pain kept me awake for hours last night. "Demon in the night," indeed--an apt way to put it! Unfortunately for me, these demons have lasted for every day of this year since New Year's, and the unpredictability of things is getting me down.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I'm going to die of a bug, if not this year, then in one to come, and probably sooner rather than later.
In the mean time, good luck, Kevin!
Jesus, Nathan! Take care of yourself, man! I know it's trite, but GET WELL SOON!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kevin. At the moment, I have only a little discomfort in my left ear and the same old insulting soreness in my throat, all of which is to say I hope I've turned a corner--and I hope you do, too!
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention one other indignity: I also coughed until I threw up--that was a first, for me. Fortunately, I seem to have recovered from the very severe cough--that recovery was quite fast, but I still have a low-key, low energy cough. Anyway, between all that bad stuff, I lost two weeks worth of work. I was very lucky that I was allowed to use a combination of sick days and holidays to make up the lost amount in its entirety, but I have no sick days left, and have lost several valuable holidays. Still, I should be thankful, I suppose, for the fact that my first cheque of the year was normal-sized.
ReplyDeleteNathan,
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds awful. I'm sorry to hear you have no vacation time left over, but I'm glad your boss was accommodating enough to allow you to use your sick days and vacation days all in a row. A lot of bosses get antsy about that.
Hang in there!
Well, it's only my sick days that are all gone. I get two weeks of holidays--10 days--and since I returned on the Saturday, and since there was a star, I was only down 8 days, which means that after my five sick days, I only lost three holidays. I'm hopeful that I can get those three days back, though: at the end of July, I will have completed my fifth year, which means another full week of holidays per year. I'm hopeful that they'll give me that week pro-rated, which should mean that I don't lose anything, apart from the sick days, of course. Anyway, thanks for your good wishes. I had a good sleep last night, the first in some time. I hope you get better, too!
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