I’m sick. For what seems like the 100th time in the last year I caught a sniffle and it went straight to my tonsils. Those vestigial structures in our throats which seem to have no function whatsoever have seemingly found a life of their own in my body. I am never completely rid of them, even when I am in perfect health, they are larger than they have any right to be. When I get sick, they swell up to the size of golf balls and do a number on my throat and well-being in general.
I went to the local Instacare in hopes of getting some help. I guessed/hoped that the offending infection could possibly be strep or some other bacterial infection, as is usually the case. I waited for and hour to finally be seen at which point the painkillers which I had taken were beginning to lose their efficacy. I get called back by the nurse who (as I have long become accustomed) slaughters both my first and last names. She asks me what I’m allergic to and what medications I am taking and dutifully notes them all down on her little computer screen. I then get to wait again for another thirty minutes for the doctor to materialize.
He shows up and speaks down to me in a warm but slightly condescending manner. He asks me if I know the differences between bacteria and viruses and it was about then that I wanted to scream at him. I had been waiting for ninety minutes for a straight answer to confirm my own understanding of the situation and I was getting the Sesame Street version of healthcare. The doctor finally tells me that they had run all the tests they could on my culture and they had no clue what the infection could be, other than the fact that it certainly wasn’t a bacterial infection. He asks me what drugs I’m allergic to and proceeds to write me a prescription for an antibiotic in a family I am allergic to and have had no positive results from in the past. I’m in a foul mood and my body hurts so I just leave.
I then make the trip to the local Walgreens to fill this prescription in the hopes that it may help out in some small way. I decide to fill it knowing that if I have an allergic reaction it could very easily interfere with another drug I am taking and, in some remote and extremely unlikely circumstance, could result in the necrosis of my flesh and become a life-threatening issue. You think I’m joking, but I’m not. I walked up to the counter and the technician at the counter asks me how I’m associated with the girl who the prescription is made out to. I am used to this, as my name was chosen very lovingly, but was chosen at an inopportune time and is similar to a slew of different female names which are now largely associated with women in my age-group. I patiently explain that it’s for me and give her the correct pronunciation of my name. I get this ‘yeah, whatever’ look from her and I’m informed it will just take ten minutes for my potentially deadly prescription to be dispensed.
Thirty minutes later the pharmacist on duty calls me, again mispronouncing my name which is starting to irritate me, asking me if I’m aware that I’m most likely allergic to the drugs I’ve been prescribed. I tell him that, yes I’m fully aware and that if I die I will take it up with the person who prescribed the drugs. My patience was running thin. I had spent roughly two hours at the Instacare listening to children screaming and crying because their parents wouldn’t let them run wild anymore. I had then spent thirty minutes being subjected to the ‘Baby Boomer Trip Back to the 50s & 60s Sock-hop to Psychedelic Party Mix’ at Walgreens, and I was about to the point where I was hoping the antibiotics would kill me.
I’m slightly hopeful that I will soon be getting out of the hell that is Walgreens and will be able to go home and take some painkillers and take a nap. Instead, I get to wait for another fifteen minutes, in which I get to ponder the many ways I would kill Mick Jagger if given the opportunity to travel back into the past. The pharmacist calls me up, again mispronouncing my name, and hands me my prescription. I pay for my pills and head out to my car and open up the bag to find that they are pre-packaged in a nifty little box. I had the privilege of waiting forty-five minutes for something that took all of thirty seconds to put in a bag. I pondered going back in and complaining, but I realize that this would involve being subject to the Musak nightmare.
I head home and sleep for the remainder of the afternoon. As of yet, I have defied my normal poor luck with most medications and I have not yet had any side effects or reactions. I don’t handle being sick nearly as well as I would like; my temper gets short and I’m no where near as patient as I usually try to be. There aren’t many introspective musings or lessons I have learned from today. I just needed to vent more or less about things. I guess one important take-home message from this is that I should probably consider changing my name or at least alter the spelling to be less ambiguous. Oh and I should have my tonsils out.