I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
April 21, 2010
>I don’t like to whine online, but for the past five days, I haven’t been feeling so good.
I came down with what seemed to be a particularly badass strain of cold virus last week, one day after my in-laws arrived in town for a rare visit. Consequently, they’ve gone back home with an indelible image of their daughter-in-law lying dull-eyed on the sofa all day while their poor, beleaguered son rushes around taking care of everyone.
Appropriate, right?
Anyway, after four days of misery that included a wicked cough and sore throat, I suspected I might have strep throat. It had happened last year, after all, and this time I wasn’t going to walk around with strep for 23 days before going in to see the doctor. So I made an appointment yesterday and went in.
I had gotten dressed and made up enough to fit in with the rest of the people sitting in the doctor’s waiting room. But my cover was completely blown when the nurse opened the door dressed in a haz-mat suit.
“Mrs. Ferrier?” she said in a muffled voice from behind a mask.
“Oh!” I said, jumping up and looking around me quickly. The other patients stared back. None of the other nurses had come out in haz-mat suits. What was wrong with me? I followed her to a nurse’s station, where she quickly swabbed my throat and put the culture away before stepping across the room, where she ripped off her headgear and took a deep breath.
I clutched my purse in bewilderment, and then it hit me that this, like so many things, was all my husband’s fault!
The reason I eventually went to the doctor last year was that Hubs came down with strep and then acted like he had ebola or something. Seriously. It was Armageddon as far as he was concerned, and his sore throat was all the proof anyone needed. Of course, he immediately went to the doctor and when his throat was swabbed, he gagged and did something unheard of.
He spit in the nurse’s eye.
HE SPIT IN THE NURSE’S EYE.
The way it was told (And retold. And retold.) later, it must have been a real loogie, because there was an uproar in the nurse’s station- screaming and hand wringing and carrying on and OHMYGAWDANEWSMANSPITINMYEYE, and consequently, my own throat was swabbed a year later by a woman wearing a haz-mat suit. As if eye-spitting runs in our family or something!
GAH.
Fortunately, another nurse took over when it was time for me to go to an examining room.
“Hi,” I said with relief when she came through the door. I was totally ready to get some sympathy for the uncalled-for haz-mat suit.
“Did Dennis tell you what happened to me last year?” she asked by way of introduction.
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. “Did he, um, spit in your eye?” I asked in a tiny voice.
“He did,” she confirmed. “And did he tell you what happened afterward?”
“No,” I squeaked.
“I had to go down to the lab and get like, eleventy hundred vials of blood taken,” she said. “They had to do blood tests on me.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s horrible.”
“And I had to do a pee test,” she continued. “And they needed a lot of pee. And I can’t just produce that amount of pee on command!”
“Of course not,” I whispered.
“So there it was, Friday afternoon, and did you know my husband and I had made plans to drive up to the mountains? CANCELED!”
I could feel my face beginning to turn red.
“And it was just me and the lab technician sitting there at 6:30. ‘Can you pee yet?’ he kept asking. ‘No.’ ‘Can you pee yet?’ ‘No!'”
I hung my head in shame.
“I don’t even do strep tests anymore,” she said. “I just send them down the hall to the other nurses.”
“And I guess that’s why I got the haz-mat suit,” I said quietly.
She laughed bitterly. “Oh no,” she said. “Jeannie did a strep test last week and a man threw up on her. She’s been a little spooked ever since.”
I brightened. “Oh!” I said. Hubs had been usurped!
The rest of our exchange went off without incident. And in the end, I was diagnosed by my doctor with a sinus infection, not strep. I was glad that he, at least, didn’t hold my husband’s crime against me.
Or did he?
Last night, my husband was reading the information on the antibiotic my doctor prescribed me when he stopped short.
“Lindsay,” he said, “This is what they prescribe for people with Anthrax.”
Yes. I am taking medication for ANTHRAX.
Put on your Haz-Mat suits, people. The Eye-Spitter’s Wife is on her way.
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