blast from the past

i think it might be at least fifteen years since the last time i had strep throat. i remembered two things about the disease: it makes your throat really, really sore and it really, really hurts when they stick that giant q-tip down there to swab up some germs. i didn't even feel sick until late sunday night, when my throat was just a tiny bit sore, but by monday morning, you could see the bulging lymph nodes in the left hand side of my neck from across the room. we attempted some home-diagnosis, which involved me holding the flashlight and shoving a butter knife into my mouth to hold my tongue down while matt took pictures of my throat with the digital camera. it was relatively unsuccessful.

finally, after my fever continued to increase and my whining started to get overwhelming, matt convinced me to call my doctor and i managed to get an appointment for 7:00 yesterday evening. it only takes 6 minutes to do a strep test these days (the times really have changed) and the doctor took two swabs- he was so sure that it was strep that he said if the test came back negative the first time, he wanted to have a back-up ready to run the test again. perhaps the double-swab made it hurt more or perhaps i was just having flashbacks to the swabbings of my youth, but the giant q-tips brought tears to my eyes.

after 24 hours of penicillin and a few doses of motrin, i feel practically as good as new.