Still Plagued

Medical update: It turns out I don’t actually have the plague, but I do have strep. The strep they told me I didn’t have on Tuesday when I felt like death was knocking on my door as I hid behind the couch. The strep the 15-minute rapid test didn’t show. The strep the nice PA I saw at urgent care said I didn’t have because my throat showed no redness or white spots. The strep the 24-hour test apparently showed but no one bothered to call me FOR 72 HOURS!!! Seventy-two hours during which I was teaching students and interacting with staff, potentially infecting all of them! Do I sound annoyed? Hell, yeah.

I kept expecting a call all day on Wednesday—the 24-hour mark—that would notify me that I did indeed have strep. Why else would I feel this bad? This was not normal for me. Yes, even for me there are parameters to normal. I knew what I had was not a typical sore throat. But to not let me know when I’ve been walking among the other humans for 72 hours? That’s ridiculous, not to mention unsafe.

Now, it seems, I will be contagious at least until 24 hours after ingesting my first antibiotic, which I took at 2:00 on Friday afternoon. Antibiotics, by the way, that are so large I can only imagine they are meant for elephants with strep. I had to miss my school’s yearly fundraiser, which was extremely disappointing, and I’ll have to lock myself in the house until after 2:00 on Saturday afternoon. Oh, well. I guess things could be worse. I could be the person giving that antibiotic to the elephant …