Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat. Nothing else seemed to be the matter and it wasn’t really all that sore anyway. Tuesday morning I got up with a really sore throat. On a scale of 1-10, Monday was a 2 and Tuesday was a 9. I went into the office because I was expecting a contractor to arrive and begin working. He didn’t get there until the next day as it was. By mid morning, I headed out to see my doctor. Of course, he doesn’t work on Tuesdays. My option was to go through urgent care. They swabbed the throat and a physicians assistant told me I had strep. She prescribed a five-day course of medication and sent me home.

We have had a trip to Seattle planned for some time. We were going to leave on Thursday morning and then start the return trip on Sunday afternoon. We would have time to visit a little bit with Jared as well as seeing Kendra. I can be sick in Seattle just as easily as being sick in Pocatello. So, we loaded up the motor home and headed to the great northwest.

The problem with really sore throats is swallowing. That has become impossible. I’ve managed to choke down the daily pill, but that’s about it. Thursday morning I was feeling so crappy that we stopped in Baker City, Oregon at their emergency room to see if there was something they could do relieve the pain enough so I could drink some fluids. Their solution was a fairly strong narcotic in the butt. The headache subsided, but no hope for the sore throat. They prescribed some vicodin and dripped a liter of a saline solution into my body (two sticks to get the IV started. I almost didn’t care). The vicodin managed to make my mouth so dry that it puckered automatically (and that was the end of that medication. It’s a horse-sized pill, anyhow). There seems to be no change in the pain levels. On the same scale, I would say today on this quiet Saturday morning that my throat is an 8. Some improvement — but it almost put me on the floor trying to get the last of the Zithromax (azithromycin) tablets down. Thank heavens this was a once-a-day tablet. Now I don’t have to try and get anything else down until the throat eases up.

There is always an upside, I guess. I haven’t had anything to eat since Tuesday morning, either. Every once in a while my stomach cuts through the pain noise from my throat to remind me that I haven’t eaten in some time. It’s easy to ignore because the thought of trying to get something down is quite nauseating. But, I keep telling myself, it has to get better. I’m sure I still believe that….