| Current mood: |  accomplished |
| Current music: | PJ Harvey - Naked Cousin |
these past two weeks..
my health insurance expired on september 30th. shortly after, murphy's law kicked in. first, i got the flu. then i got upper respiratory infection. i was out for three days downing nyquil and dayquil every 4 hours. and sleeping a lot. then i got what i thought was hives combined with a tough bout of tonsilitis, since i had some crazy rash that i'd never had before and when i showed anyone they're like, "oh that's just hives, you're nervous about something, bathe in oatmeal and it'll go away in about ten days." my glands were swollen to the size of small plums the monday before last, and when i bathed in oatmeal the rash seemed to get worse. at first it looked like a 3rd degree sunburn all over my body, then it got bumpy and really itchy, then it got splotchy and inflamed, to where about half an inch all around my body was swollen. i could seperate my fingers as much as possible and they would still be touching. by last friday night i couldn't get to sleep. i kept tossing and turning and every time i touched some part of my body it would go up in flames. i got about twenty minutes of sleep and when i woke up my throat was closed up so much i could barely breathe. i was exhausted and in severe pain, so i called my mom at 6 am crying hysterically and trying to talk to her and she couldn't understand what i was saying. she said she would wire me some money and i needed to go to the ER immediately. so i went. and they stared at me. noone had ever seen anything like i had. by that point my legs were purple, and the tips of my fingers were gray, and my throat kind of blended in with my head it was so huge. i could barely talk and every time i took a breath it sounded like a dying cow. they asked me a few questions to which i could nod and sink in and out of hysteria and then gave me an extremely painful shot of antibiotics in my butt that passed me out for 30 minutes till they came back and gave me prescriptions and told me to immediately get them filled and go home, otherwise they'd have to keep me here and stick an iv drip in me to monitor me. i didn't want that, so i did what they said. they prescribed me a large bottle of liquid vicodin and a massive bottle of horse pill amoxicillin. told me to take the vicodin every 3 hours if i was awake. this weekend was a complete blur because of that.
the doctor called me today to tell me the results of my throat swab thinger were in. i had scarlet fever. scarlet motherfucking fever. who the hell gets that anymore? she said if i had waited one more day to come in without antibiotics, i would have died. died. if i had managed to make it till sunday morning without getting any antibiotics, i would have dropped dead. in my bed, alone. nobody knowing any different, noone thinking anything about it because everyone just thought i had hives, no big deal. why isn't angela at work monday? oh, she probably overslept. we'll call her. she's not answering her phone, someone drop by her house and ring her doorbell 20 times to wake her ass up. well, i went, i rang the bell, i saw her sleeping in her bed but she was out cold. i tried knocking on her window but nothing. if she doesn't call us by tonight, she's fired. it's tuesday, she hasn't called. someone go check on her and make sure she's okay. well, i went to check on her and she's still sleeping in her bed. she must be really tired, i wonder if something's wrong? what should we do?
noone would have been the wiser, and i would have been dead. who would have found me that way? would they have called the office and told them to unlock my door and check on me? would the maintenance man have checked my pulse and come to the realization? how would everyone i know find out? would they have called my mom? do they even have my mom's number? and to even imagine what she would have gone through. "the last time i talked to her she was sick but she didn't sound horrible. i didn't think she would have died. what did she have? scarlet fever? she told me she had hives. just hives, that's all. i told her to take an oatmeal bath. i told her to take an oatmeal bath and now she's dead."
does everyone go through points in their lives where they're forced to confront their death, not by choice, but by accident? does everyone have an epiphany that they could have died? something so strong that makes you think like this? something that makes you change your life because you've realized how precious life is and how fast it could be gone?
who would've thought, scarlet motherfucking fever.
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