my adventures in being sick with perfectly normal but surprising things
So I have this upper body rash that doesn't itch. I've had it since Monday. I went to the student health center with it, and the nurse practitioner diagnosed it pretty quickly.
Then she got me talking other symptoms, decided to run some tests, and, behold! the result:
My wanting to sleep all the time the past few weeks? MONO.
(Yes, I have the kissing disease. Ahaha.)
My sore throat and prickly sensations on my skin and overall yucky feeling yesterday? STREP.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, apparently you can walk around in the world with Mononucleosis and Strep Throat at the same time and feel A-okay. Seriously, today I feel better than I have in a long time, despite all this. Probably, that's because my mono is apparently almost gone, according to all the pertinent counts they did of things in my blood. What's funny is how the nurse practitioner thought to investigate my other vague symptoms, too. I told her I'm a PhD student, and she said she immediately knew there was every possibility I'd be stubborn and tough and maybe not even realize how sick I was, as hell bent as PhD students are on working hard and pushing through. (The other group who "doesn't have time to be sick": freshmen.)
Anyway, up sides:
1. It's not airborne! This is good, considering I helped serve drinks at a pot luck at church this week, not to mention one of my summer school students is pregnant. (I had visions of being Typhoid Mary for a while there!)
2. I don't feel bad. My rash doesn't itch. My throat isn't any more sore than it sometimes gets when my sinuses are draining. And I've gotten past the sleeping-all-the-time stage with the mono.
3. The strep is treatable with antibiotics!
4. I now have a real reason for feeling run down the last few weeks that doesn't involve laziness or depression.
5. I can impress people by telling them how I have mono, strep, and a funky rash...and am still standing.
Dude, it's just all so weird. *hands*