Never fails, does it?

It's Friday, a weekend, or better yet, a holiday. It's as if my immune system says, no way she can get in to see her family doctor now, and emerg will be a nightmare. No triage nurse in his right mind will let her be seen before Massive Head Wound Harry who got beaten over the head with a beer bottle outside The Stone Room Lounge in broad daylight. Better yet, I'm in Halifax at my son's apartment this time.


It's a stealth attack every time. There's no sense of impending doom, mild scratch or tickle. I awake, blink my eyes a few times, and try to swallow. Operative word: try. I cannot produce the necessary motion without a groan and not only does this hurt, it feels like there is no opening in my throat anymore. It's as if the pharyngeal tissues were two loaves of bread dough that have risen and overflowed the pans and now touch! This is not good.


I say to Quin in his sleeping bag in the living room (he always does the gentlemanly thing and gives me his room), "My throat is so swollen." 
"Take a drink, Mom," he says. "Have an Advil, too."


Water helps things a tiny bit and at least encourages the saliva to start up and assist. I'm not dying or anything remotely like that, yet my first thought is to immediately default in my brain past tonsillitis (yes, I still have them at 57), past pharyngitis, laryngitis and other -itises, directly to strep throat. I've only been treated once in my entire life for strep throat, but I could swear, this is exactly how I felt with it.

But it's Friday. I'm driving back to the valley now. How am I going to get it looked at, or get a swab done to be cultured on a weekend?
Feeling defeated before I even try, I drink my Venti Starbucks as I drive and realize that I also have a runny nose, headache and sensitive eyes. Good thing I have sunglasses as the sun on all the snow along the 101 hurts to look at.


I am a terrible patient. I self-diagnose and believe the voice in my head that insists that I must have a streptococcal infection. Then I remember that I might have a refill left from the erythromycin I was prescribed last spring for a sinus infection. I pull into the driveway and am phoning the pharmacy in minutes.

"Yes, Cate; there are two refills on that. Fill it? Great. When will you want to pick it up?"


I go upstairs with some herbal tea and lie down on the bed, two Springer spaniels' soft brown eyes regarding me with sympathy. I'm just nodding off when my brother Mark calls, and I explain my state.


"Don't start that stuff, you don't know what you've got!" 
I love this man, and he is a vet, but I swear I can feel those little strep bacteria multiplying. "Don't self-medicate."


My friend Todd calls later. 
"Call your doctor."
He's American. I explain that at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon, my doctor's office isn't even taking calls. And that I really don't feel sick enough to go sit at outpatients with all the really sick people.


By this time, Julie is home with the meds which I leave in their bag on the counter. I pick at my dinner. She watches me and says, "I don't think you should take anything until you get your throat looked at and swabbed."


So now it's Saturday and I feel like hell, although writing this has kept my mind off how sore my muscles are. And the erythromycin? No, I didn't take it. Probably wouldn't be smart.


I'll make do with ibuprofen, soup and tea. Argh.