This week's offering is not so much a blog post as it is a Public Service Announcement.
So, you know how when you get a prescription (let's say, for example, from your OB/GYN to treat a burgeoning case of Mastits?) and (s)he tells you that you really need to finish the all of the pills in the bottle even if you start to feel better?
Yeah, well, it turns out that is REALLY useful advice and you should totally do it.
I, as they say in Hollywood, "went another way" last week after getting a 10-day course of medication. Instead, based on my vast array of medical knowledge gained from years of watching General Hospital episodes, I decided that since I was no longer symptomatic after 3 days on the stuff I probably didn't need to take any more. So, I stopped.
CUT TO TWO DAYS LATER and me looking pretty much indistinguishable from the girl from The Last Exorcism poster.
I spent several hours on Wednesday afternoon lying prone on the floor while my children played around my listless body (with Snoodie offering the occasional helpful commentary, "Mommy zzzzzz-zzzzzz!") before deciding it was time to pull the ripcord and call David at work. I managed to get out the phrase, "I can no longer care for our children" before collapsing again.
David rushed home and (having gained his own vast array of medical knowledge from watching guys get their ankles taped up during football games) felt my head and announced with an air of certainty, "I don't think you have a fever." I limped off to bed and left dinner and bath time in Daddy's capable hands while I proceeded to pray fervently for sweet death to take me, or at least to be allowed to slip into a mild coma until this thing passed.
By that night I was rapidly cycling between teeth chattering and sauna-worthy sweats, and I told David that I was pretty sure I did, in fact, have a fever. He eventually conceded that I did feel "a little warm" and we took my temperature. It was 103.2.
So we decided to called the advice nurse at the hospital. It was around 10pm when she informed me that she thought I should really come to the ER right away. I let her know that that I had two kids under two asleep at home and thus a multi-hour trip to the ER wasn't really looking too promising at the present moment. She explained that if I did not come in to the ER that would constitute "refusing medical advice" (a.k.a. lady, if you die it's on you - we tried to warn you). I tried to get some odds on how likely it was that I would actually expire if I didn't show up at the ER, but the nurse lady seemed fairly reticent on that score.
I told David that without a guarantee of certain death if I stayed in bed I wasn't going anywhere. I absolved him of responsibility for my care, pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep for the next two days (rising only briefly to drag myself out to the doctor where I was roundly scolded and set up with a new course of antibiotics).
So, as evidenced by the presence of this post, I managed to survive 'MASTITIS 2: The Return of Mastitis; The Terror Surfaces' but I'm telling you folks, it was NO picnic. So take my advice and take all the pills the nice doctor gives you, even if you feel better.
I promise you'll thank me later.
