A Visit to the Doctor

I told Jeff this morning about everyone's comments that he should go to the doctor. He weakly insisted, "I feel much better this morning. I don't think I need the doctor. It's probably going away soon." Uh huh...

Then when he checked his temperature and found it to be 104 degrees, he agreed that maybe he should see the doctor.

So after breakfast we got the kids together and stuffed ourselves in the car and drove off to the urgent care. It's very rare that I drive the car when we're both in it - usually Jeff drives unless I'm going somewhere without him. But today we made an exception, since he felt like his head was in a bubble and he couldn't really concentrate. Yeah, that's not good.

Anyway, we got to urgent care and checked in and all that jazz. The nurse-practitioner there thought it was probably one of two things - strep or influenza. She did the strep test first, which involved a back-of-the-throat swab. Jeff has a very sensitive gag reflex. She had to try three times to get that silly swab to actually touch his tongue, because he kept pulling back, gagging, choking, and nearly throwing up on her. She finally had to use the tongue depressor and left him gasping and wheezing for dear life, but she got the swab.

Ten minutes later, another nurse came in and said the strep was a negative (so all that swabbing and gagging wasn't even necessary). Now for the flu test - another swab, straight up the nose. I was thinking, okay, they're going to swab out his snot. Yuck, but not too bad, compared to the strep test. Well, apparently, it was at least as bad as the strep test. The nurse had to swab WAY up in his nose, all the way up to the sinus next to the eye. I didn't care to watch that one, but Jeff said it really stung and was about as uncomfortable as the strep test had been. Well, at least they got it on the first try with that one.

The verdict: Jeff has influenza. I learned something new - what most people think of as "the flu" really isn't real influenza - it is a virus, and it is unpleasant, but not really the same, or as bad, as the real flu. Jeff has the real flu, the actual influenza virus. The bad news is that, since it's a virus, there's no cure. We just have to wait it out and treat the symptoms. The good news is that since he's been dealing with it for over a week, it's probably almost over. Influenza typically lasts 7-10 days. So we just keep giving him ibuprofen, and wait it out. And for that, they charged us a $30 copay. Well, it is nice to know that he doesn't have strep or anything more serious.

So hopefully things will be back to normal in a day or two. I can finally get all the dishes done, instead of just a few at a time; Jeff can go to classes in the morning and help out at home in the evening; life will be the normal kind of insane, instead of this sick kind. I'm looking forward to it.