Oh, Dear. What Now?

 I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather all week. Like I was coming down with a cold – that congestion in the back of the head, sore throat, a slight cough, a little more tired than usual.

We had fired up the furnace in the new camper last Saturday, so I thought at first it was from that. The blowing around of stale air with who knows what kind of germs that had been dormant all winter and now were rudely awakened and out for vengeance.

I tried not to think about it as these symptoms dragged on all week.

Driving home from work last night, though, I kept yawning. And every time I yawned, it felt like someone was slicing open my throat with a serrated knife. When I got home, I finally looked in the mirror, a flashlight shining to the back of my opened mouth.

Yikes. It looked like the stump of a freshly severed limb. (Too graphic? Accept my apologies. I’m just stating the most obvious description.)

I loaded up on every kind of drug I had around the house (which isn’t much), gargled with salt water, drank some warm lemon juice, ate supper, and went to bed.

First thing this morning, with the throat still looking the same (but otherwise feeling fine), I did the responsible thing and took my temperature. I don’t have an ear thermometer or a forehead one, or even a digital one that goes under the tongue. If you know me at all, you may remember I am old-school. I dragged out the old mercury thermometer. The ones they pretty much banned a few years ago when they discovered how dangerous mercury is. Another thing the younger generation has to miss out on – playing with those mercury beads after the thermometer broke. I was raised in a simpler time and I’m grateful for that.

Also, grateful that my thermometer has a blue tip on it. For those who don’t know, if it has a blue tip and thinner end, it’s for use in the mouth. If it has a red tip and is more stubby on the end, it’s rectal. Good to know, right? In case your old thermometer has seen some action.

Anyway, my temperature was 98 degrees. Normal. But it’s time to do one more responsible thing. Call the clinic to talk to one of the providers about my “condition.” I could maybe tough this out, but I did, after all, work at that clinic all week, so my co-workers should know what I might have exposed them to, though our masks were all on and we social distance as much as we can.

I’ll try to keep you posted.