Strep! Whee!

I went to sleep at 8.30 last night. I didn't know I could do that! I slept fairly well, dreaming some about school and some about something weird that I can't remember. Something about being in a trailer being turned on its side, and being underground, and possibly a monster.

This morning I still felt fatigued, despite more than ten hours of sleep. Although I did not feel like a zombie, which is an improvement.

So my test prep (Stupid!) involved a super quick mini lesson/model of predictions, using a short Pakistani fairy tale. Then, using the same story, each group answered a set of questions using the skill that group needs to work on. Meaning there was a group working on sequence, details, drawing conclusions, response, and making predictions. I was supposed to stay with the predictions group, but it's impossible to stay with one group very long. Well, not impossible, obviously, just extremely ill-advised. Especially because a few groups were not working well together and really needed a teacher stink-eye every few minutes to keep them on track, if not me actually going over to them.

Class A was alright. Not great like last week, where all the groups were actually engaged. Class B did not have much time, and they were also only okay. Trouble with a bunch of boys in that class. Class C was extremely chatty and off-task.

My throat was killing me all day. Swallowing feels like shards of glass inside my throat. The extensive talking also irritated my throat in another place. All I had to eat was a banana, and that was painful. There was no time or energy to eat anything else.

Right after school, I left. (Which I never do; it felt a bit illicit and also lazy.) I went straight to the clinic...where I was told that the urgent care doesn't begin until 6pm. It was all I could do not to burst into tears at that point; I was so tired and getting medical attention was the only thing getting me through the day.

So I got home, ate some food, and popped in the tape of tv that I taped all week. Lounged about, trying not to fall asleep. I have a secret: I like to watch the reruns of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch that come on at 5.30. I'm sorry! It's terribly cheesy, but I just always watch it!

Finally I left the house again, which I hated having to do, at 6.15. Though I did get some homework corrected, which is great for me. I arrived back at the clinic and had an almost eery experience. It only took a few minutes to wait, get called, fill out the form, and get into a room. The nurse took my pulse and blood pressure. Then she said, "The doctor will be right in." Which they always say. I got up to grab the homework, but the doctor was actually standing right outside the door. He shuffled in, all old and droopy and slow. Didn't introduce himself or anything. He asked, "So what's the problem?" He looked in my throat for a few moments, checked my lungs and very briefly felt my neck, all without speaking. He said, "Allergic to penicillin?" I said no. And he wrote out a prescription. Me: "....so, what is it?" He said it was strep. "Scientifically" he could take a culture and send it in and wait three days and then start the medicine, but from what he saw (for all of the two minutes), it's strep.

Leaving the office, I didn't even have to pay a co-pay. (Way to go, premium-free teacher insurance!). I walked two blocks around the corner to a Walgreen's pharmacy. The prescription was supposed to take fifteen minutes, but it was done in seven. For the bottle of amoxycillin, I only paid $2. Sweet!

I stopped at the grocery store and was home by 8.30. I had anticipated an hour or more waiting time at the office, plus more time in the exam room, and obviously more to pay for the prescription. But geez, it was so fast and so cheap. I love it!

I do feel a bit vindicated at the diagnosis; at least I wasn't just whining or making shit up. The doctor said that in a few days I won't be contagious anymore (oohoo, fun--I've been contagious! At school. Nice.) and be getting better.