You Give Me Fever? [& Day 24]

Weeeeeellll… its been an interesting past 24-48 hours that's for sure!  Remember waaaaaaay back on day 2 & 3 of the challenge where I was complaining about being sick and possibly having strep throat?  Here’s a recap of what happened…

On or about 20 days ago, my mom did a rapid strep test on me and it turned out weakly positive sooo I was a responsible doobie and went to my doctor’s office to see the PA [my doc was off on vacay…very important factoid for later].  The PA didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t feeling so hot and thought I had strep throat but she did a rapid strep test and a strep culture just to appease me.  I say she didn’t believe me because she looked at my throat and said it didn’t look red and my temp wasn’t high enough. [it was running in the 99^ range for about 4-5 days… on a non-sick day I tend to register about 96^ so 99^ is high for me]  Anywho, she did the rapid and said it came back negative and that she didn’t expect anything from the culture but I would be notified if anything turned up.

Fast forward to two days ago [Sunday night].  I get a call on my cell from a number I don’t recognize so I let it go to VM.  I check the message to discover my doctor saying he needed to discuss my recent test results with me.  Enter fear and panic.  I can only remember having the throat culture done… but in recent months I have had blood tests done by the rheumy.  It has to be the culture… but what did they find?!  Of course my mind goes to the least likely thing – they found more cancer.  The doc says he will call me on Monday. 

Monday night about 7pm I got a call from my doc.  He says that when he got back from vacay on Friday, he found that my culture results had indeed come back positive and that he was very sorry that no one had informed me of this. Then he asks how I'm feeling and I say good.  And then he says because my strep infection went untreated there is a slight concern that I might develop rheumatic fever.  Then he explains some symptoms I have to watch for and that rheumatic fever usually develops 3-4 weeks after the initial infection.

Say what?! Seriously all I have to say on that one is FML.

On a brighter note… Day 24’s topic is: Where I Live

I will make this brief… I live in southwest Michigan and I have for my entire life.  The summers are warm and humid because of the lake.  The fall is absolutely beautiful with cool crisp air, the smell of apples, and the colors on the trees.  Winters… well I hate winter.  Its cold and it snows… it snows a lot because of the lake effect off lake Michigan.  I’m about a half hour away from the beaches and lake and about 3 hours away from Chicago or Detroit.  Last I knew, my city of Grand Rapids was the 2nd largest in the state behind Detroit.  Its a nice place to live overall… with the exception of the winter months… which last from November through April here.  We are probably the #1 reason Florida is so populated during that time.