Missing In Action: Sick as a Dog

It hit me, I went running anyway, and then it decided that I was a dumbass and hit me harder. What is "it"?

Why, strep throat of course!

Last Saturday, as I scoured the city for a 10th Anniversary gift for my lovely wife with my older son in tow, I started feeling a bit of a tickle in the back of my throat. No big deal. I had gone on a 10km run that morning and things were fine as far as I was concerned.

Sunday morning came and it hurt to swallow. I didn't run in the morning because I felt like crap. Instead, I drove the boys across town to my Dad's, came home and then went out for a nice 16.5km run. There was little that was nice about it. In fact, it was crap. I felt like death in the second half and by the time I got home I knew I'd come down with something that I should not have been trying to run through. The whole "from the neck up" thing is total BS in the case of strep.

After a shower I lay down in bed and proceeded to occupy that space which exists somewhere between consciousness and deep sleep. I couldn't move, I felt cold and hot at the same time, and things were deteriorating rapidly as far as the throat was concerned. By that evening swallowing anything was pure agony.

So, on Monday morning, the wife and I went off to the Doctor's office to get a confirmation on what we already suspected was happening. Indeed, we both had strep throat, but the Doctor said that I won since mine was much more spectacular. Yay for me...

I was so glad to have Monica with me since I could not utter a word to the Doctor and managed a few whispers here and there. Those were mostly of the unhelpful joke variety like when Monica asked if she could go to work that day and the Doctor asked what she did for a living and I interjected that she was a "professional kisser". Hahaha. So stupid...

Anyway, I told that Doctor that I might be allergic to Penicillin given that I'd always been told I'd had a reaction to it back when I was a kid after my appendectomy. The Doctor muttered something about the next best alternative being sold out all over the place because so many people were getting hit with strep and so she prescribed something else. In my past experiences with strep once you get on the antibiotics your condition improves rapidly so I was hopeful that I would be back on the mend within the next 24hrs.

It was not to be. Although my throat slowly (painfully so) started feeling better I had an allergic reaction to the meds. This manifested itself in the form of an itchy rash (gross, I know) and a really weird thing: the palms of my hands and bottoms of my feet became super sensitive to heat! It was ridiculous!!! Taking a shower with barely lukewarm water felt like someone was pouring water straight out of a boiling hot kettle onto my hands!

On Wednesday it was back to the Doctor's to check and see if it was OK for me to keep taking the meds. The answer quickly came back "No!" and I am now on some super antibiotic that is reserved for patients with severe pneumonia! Let's hope that this stuff doesn't kill me...

Oh yeah, the other thing is that everything I put in my mouth tastes like chalk. Not pleasant at all, but at least my throat has opened up for the most part and swallowing now is just a mildly unpleasant experience, not the impossible task that I'd faced for a few days there.

And lastly, from Saturday night until Wednesday night I maybe got one hour of sleep in total. Every time I had to swallow the pain was so severe that I was never able to actually fall asleep. On top of that, as you can imagine, my diet suffered badly. I ate very little and that which I WAS able to get down was either in the form of chicken broth or ice cream. I also became very dehydrated. Not exactly the best way to prepare for a 30k race that is now only 9 days away!

I may not run the thing. Very disappointing...