Fuck
THE NEGATIVE

So towards the end of June, beloved boyfriend Greg goes camping in Colorado. Two days after he leaves, I'm not feeling so hot. The feeling grows and grows until my throat is incredibly swollen and sore. Now, I've had strep before, and always, as a last resort, if you needed a few hours off, you could take a lot of ibuprofin and it would cut most of the pain. This time, no dice. It barely took the edge off for maybe an hour or two. As the week progresses, leading up to the 7th of July (my 30th birthday), I am waiting for the throat to pass and get better. It never does. Instead, small cuts and scabs begin developing in my throat, and the pain is incredible.
So 'round about the 5th, with two days to go until I have to get on a plane to fly to LA for a wedding, I pop into one of those minute clinics run by a nurse practitioner. I need to do something, it had been well over a week and the throat continued unabated. She did a swab for strep and it came back negative. Since her opinion was, "there's something growing back there", she gave me a prescription for antibiotics while we waited for the throat culture to come back (5 days). She gave me a lecture about the overuse of antibiotics, told me she thought I had mono, and then told me that it was up to me whether or not to take them. She then started to do a test for mono, then changed her mind, said she was so convinced that she didn't need to test me, and sent me on my way. (HUH??)
So I left, and started taking the pills. I spent my 30th birthday at a wedding in LA, sick and achy and miserable. I flew out there to spend four hours at the weeding before crawling back to my hotel room hours before everyone else.
By Monday the throat began subsiding, which lets me notice all of the other bad things that are happening to my body. I feel tired all the time, and queasy, like I'm constantly carsick. I have three sets of swollen lymph nodes in my neck, I get dizzy when I stand up, periodic fevers, and last but not least, I have no appetite.
This is nothing like the mono I had two years ago.
So I drag my ass through the week getting ready to go to Tahoe. "Tahoe", you ask? "Did you go to Tahoe?"
Oh yes. For my 30th birthday I had plans, grand plans. I knew the party of my dreams wasn't just going to spontaneously appear (I don't think my friends are really into surprise parties). So for my 30th I decided to do something really special, something selfishly just for me. I wanted to have a family vacation. You know, like normal families. I wanted the Miller family to travel somewhere for the sheer fun of being somewhere else. Not because we had to, to visit relatives, or because Dad got assigned somewhere, but just to hang out together and it seemed like the perfect occasion.
My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in May, my 30th was in the beginning of July, and my sister's 35th was at the end of July. I reserved and rented the condo almost a year ago. I saved, bit by bit, the $2400 to pay for the stupid thing. I pored over plans for hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, and any activity my family even mentioned they might find interesting. I dreamed Tahoe for months.
I was fucking sick for the whole trip. I was sick the week leading up to it. I was sick the two days Greg and I spent in Vegas. I was reaaaaaaly sick the nine hour drive from Vegas to Tahoe. I spent the whole goddamned, cocksucking, shitty, motherfucking, trip on a chair watching everyone else coming and going and having fun. Keeping "a brave face" on, so I didn't ruin anyone else's good time. If I rested 22 hours a day, I could just marshall my resources to do one thing. So I went on one kayaking trip on the lake. I did one short hike. I did one quick sail (and slept though it). I went to the beach exactly once. I went to the top of a mountain on a gondola, but was unable to do anything but sit there, and then ride back down. This trip was a shadow of what it was supposed to be, a mockery.
I return from Nevada, and go right to work. We do Art Garfunkle and everyone is staring at me because I sound like a lung cancer patient on my last legs (the last day or two of Tahoe I picked up a head cold that my boyfriend had, so now on top of everything else, I can't stop coughing). We do that show and another two days later. In between I go to a real doctor. He decides I have mono and does a bloodtest, which comes back negative. He explains that there are different strains of mono and does a test for another, CMV, which isn't due back for several days yet. Meantime, he prescribes me antibiotics for a sinus infection I don't think I have, and tells me how to make my foot stop hurting (it has been bothering me for a few months).
So now, I have three weeks ahead of me with no work at the Folly. I could take the entire three weeks off if I had to, but do I need to? Nope, the day I went to the doctor my appetite came back, the lymph node swelling began to go down, and I lost the nausea. All that's left is a bit of a cough, and the tendency to tire easily.

And rage. . . . ..


There will be a post on the positive. I just need time to find my silver linings.