Monday, April 5, 2004

Killing Ants with Sledgehammers

Killing Ants with Sledgehammers

I'll get to Vegas in a little bit. Unfortunately, there's not much to tell. I didn't kill any hookers, bang any maids or even accidentally graze my hand along some 17-year-old's ass. I dyed my hair, lost a lot of money and all I have to show for it is a container which at one time held a $25 long island ice tea which took me two days to finish.

Anyway, I went to see the doc today, which I've honestly never voluntarily done before because of something that wasn't an obviously ruptured Achilles tendon. So I told him it caused a good deal of pain to swallow and it didn't seem like it was getting much better. He told me he'd swab my throat but because I'd been on antibiotics for the past three days, he didn't think that any sort of strep stuff would show in the results. Oh yeah, so I got home Friday from evil Joe's birthday thing and within about an hour, my throat went from normal to like the size of one of those coffee stirring straws. And no matter how lubricated it was with water, it felt like sandpaper grinding against even dryer sandpaper whenever I swallowed. At about 5am, I contemplated swallowing some Vaseline to ease the pain, but it turns out my roommate used the whole tube last night (I didn't ask). So at this point, I figure I got the strep and now I have to do something about it. And I didn't even get it the cool way. So I go to this ghetto clinic (that's what it's called) and I sat in a room from 9am until the doctor finally showed up at 10:45 (and I'm not kidding about that). She finally came in at 11:30 and woke me up, took a throat culture which I'll get the results of tomorrow, and left for another half hour. She came back at noon and gave me three prescriptions for pain, sleep, and the actual cure and didn't even tell me what I had or what to do or anything. It was really weird. I went to Giant and had to wait another hour and a half for them to take things from a big bottle and put them in a little tiny bottle with a neat little label on it. Hell, you can skip the pretty label if it'll get me out of there an hour earlier. Anyway, I went to pay for them, expecting them to cost more than I could probably trade my car in for now, and the total was $33. They were each $11 apiece. Well shit. I had that much in cash. I was gonna get better and it was cheap. Awesome! Until I got home and tried to take this antibody that looked like something you'd put in a horse's ass to calm him down. I mean she knows I can't open my throat, what's with the fuckin mondo pink elephant pills? So I didn't get better. And I know it takes at least an hour or two for the antibods to set in, but after that weird voodoo Saturday ghetto clinic thing, I thought I'd go see my real doctor. Or at least somebody without Tarot Cards and Rudraksh Beads in his office. So when he got the test back positive for strep after being on the meds for three days, he said something like, "Whoa, that's fucked up." OK, he really said some stuff that had words that I don't know what they mean in it, but it all meant "that's one doozy of a virus you done got there." And it also might be complicated with the flu and he tried to sneak the word "mono" by me. Like this is the perfect storm of throat sickness all gangin up on me at once. Bullies. So he prescribed these other antibods for me and I asked him what the difference was. He said that you don't have to kill an ant with a sledgehammer. I like this guy. So apparently, whatever I have is something you'd need to kill with a sledgehammer whereas I was trying to squash it with my thumb before. You can't squash an evil cat with your thumb, but you can sure beat it dead with a sledgehammer. I'm getting off track. Anyway, so where was I? I'm sick. Oh yeah, I went to get the new drugs. I realized another difference between the two meds. I went to pull out my $11 cash and there was an extra one on the front there. They cost $111. I didn't have that in cash. Shit, I wasn't sure if I had that kind of credit limit. But at least they are smaller less intimidating drugs. And if anybody needs a horse sedated, I have some extra pink enormo pills now.

So I was telling Keith that I might not be able to go to volleyball nationals with him because of all this strep shit (I'm supposed to leave Wednesday ~ 7am). I also told him that I didn't want to get anybody else there sick because that would make for a really shitty time for everybody else too. So he told me to just bring the drugs and I could share them. But that didn't seem practical because I'd have to cut them up into 12...


Quote of the Day 4/5/04


"Just take all of them now so you will be better by morning"

-Dr Donoway


Funny, that's the same thing the voodoo lady said.


Down With the Sickness,

Strepping Cricket.


Still Standing Right Here...

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