Emily is a counselor in an elementary school so she gets to hang around a lot of sick children this time of the year.  We don’t measure the seasons like most people do.  Instead, we know winter has arrived when Emily brings some sort of crud home from school.  She managed to make it until mid November before catching it this year.  I posted a couple of days ago about trying to cure the whooping cough or whatever I had, with brandy.   Now, hard as I tried, one bottle of brandy did not cure my ailment.

We finally broke down and went to a walk-in clinic on Saturday morning.  Now, this is where the story gets interesting…  We were both put in the same room and seen by the same doctor (which was cool).  The doctor first evaluated Emily (who had only slept 3 to 4 hours at night due to the booger dam in her head).  I felt pretty crummy, but Emily had the black death longer and worse than I did…that’s important later.

So, the poor doctor walked into a room to meet me and a sick doberman-like creature – foolishly, she closed the door.  The doc took a quick superficial look at Emily and tried to convince her that her ailment was a simple cold that needed to be out-waited.  Disgusted, Emily coughed up some lung butter as evidence of her affliction.  Knowing she was being out-symptomed, the doctor next tried to convince the crazed woman by my side that her sickness was due to cat allergies.  Once again, in disgust, Emily produced a hairball.  She is part cat I think and was having nothing to do with the allergy argument.

Fearing for her life, the doctor tried to divert by taking a look at me.  Upon peering down my throat and listening to my chest, she was immediately concerned.  As she escaped out of the room to perform the strep test – Emily looked over to me and in all seriousness said, “I just want you to know that if you get antibiotics and I don’t – I’m taking yours and you’re on your own.”  The doctor came back in the room with 3 prescriptions for me but none for Emily.

She told Emily that she did not have the cold long enough for it to be a sinus infection.  Now, it’s been said that the foolish and the dead are the only ones who do not change their opinions.  I wasn’t sure if the doctor was foolish, but I knew for certain that if she didn’t change her opinion, she was going to be dead.  Emily dug in and refused to leave until she got an accurate diagnosis.  She finally convinced the doctor to do a head x-ray and sure enough – she had “an acute maxillary sinus infection” (or something like that).  I knew Emily’s illness was  all in her head!  Poor me though…from the brink of death I have returned – twice!  My illness is better and my wife got her antibiotics too!