People at work were disgusted with me hacking and coughing and blowing my nose all day long. I got everything from "Go to the hospital!" to "Go home!" to a couple of ladies walking around with a can of Lysol spraying all the cubicals. So I took a couple of days off last week, expecting the rest and relaxation to put all to right.
Didn't help.
On Saturday Tammy had a family reunion that I was just too sick to go to. It had gone beyond just the coughs and sneezes, and had progressed to body aches, fever (slight), head-aches, nausea, and fits of sneezing that lasted 15-20 gut-wrenching blows (I generally sneeze 2, maybe 3 times if my allergies are really bad).
Sunday I felt considerably better, the nausea and body aches were gone, as was the fever. Monday, I was in the crapper again. All my symptoms were back. So I skipped another day of work, and went to the instacare.
Off Topic
Instacare... That name is an ironic joke, I'm pretty sure: 'insta-' suggests you get in instantly when in reality you sign in, wait 10 minutes for them to call you up to pay for your care, then wait another 30-90 minutes for them to call you back, take your blood-pressure, temperature, and ask questions like "What's wrong?", then they take you back to a room where you have the choice of sitting on the bed or a chair for another 20-30 minutes. The doctor then comes in, asks a bunch of questions while typing on the computer. Listens to your chest and back while you breathe, then he's done. If anything else needs to happen, it is handled by a nurse. He only takes up about 5 minutes of your time at the "instacare."
I signed in at 10:54, I got home at 1:10.
This is how I break it down:
10:54 - Sign In
11:05 - Pay
12:00 - Get taken back
12:25 - Doctor comes in
12:30 - Doctor leaves
12:33 - Nurse comes in to take a flu test (a whole other story)
12:35 - Nurse leaves
12:55 - Doctor comes back with the test results
1:00 - I leave
Back On Topic
Flu tests - if you've never had one, you should allow yourself the experience at least once in your life - and probably just the once. If you have, you know what I mean.
The doctor sounded pretty sure I had Swine Flu, or at least some form of flu. But the test came back negative. So the answer to the initial question: Yes, it could have been Swine Flu. But it wasn't.
So now he's got me on 3 different prescriptions to help control my symptoms. A cough suppressant, a pain-reliever, and a nasal spray. Of course, the pharmacy was all out of the nasal spray until today - except they called a few minutes ago to let me know they won't have it till tomorrow, so I am going to shop around and find it sooner.
In addition to that, he wants me to keep taking Mucinex and drinking lots of fluids. And he gave me today off work. We'll see if my boss thinks that was a "continued employment" decision the doctor had a right to make. Since the cough suppressant makes me all kinds of woozy, I think it's best that I get used to it before I operate a motor-vehicle again. Or at least give it a chance to do it's work before I skip a dose in order to drive to work.
Tammy started hacking yesterday, and this morning Cordelia has a slight cough. We'll probably try to get her in to her pediatrician sometime today, just to hopefully nip it in the bud.
