Yeah, yeah, I know it has been over a month since my last post...but I have good reasons!
First of all, I was super busy with job interviews...that's right, I gave my 1 months notice at my current crap job and began applying and going to interviews. As a result, I start my new job on August 1st!!!! Yeah! I will talk more about that in a later post, though.
The second good reason I have for not posting is, I have been really sick. The week I had all my interviews I started feeling really tired and like I was coming down with a cold, which I figured was because I was having a job interview in the morning, then going to work until late at night almost every day. I thoughtI just needed a lot of rest over the weekend and I would be fine...but I started getting worse, so the next Monday (June 30th) I went to the doctor. Well, turns out I've got mono! Awesome. And, as an extra bonus, pink eye as well! Great! Needless to say I called work and did not go in that day, and since mono is contagious, they don't want me to come in until I am better, which means this Monday is the start of my third week off of work.
I am finally starting to feel better, and the doctor said after about one more week I should be fine. But, anyone who has had mono before knows that it feels like you are dying and you wish you would because then you would feel better, so even though I had nothing much to do, I was in no mood to update the blog.
So first thing, I'm sure everyone wants to know how (or from who...) I got it. Mono has an incubation period of 4-8 weeks, so it is pretty impossible to trace...but here are some ideas I have:
1. From one of the 5,000 hosts I make out with every week.
2. From the random beer on the counter that I drank at an Irish Pub.
3. From that dumpster full of medical waste I was rolling around in. (this would explain the pink-eye as well)
While number two is actually a viable option, more than likely I got it from work. As it turns out, children are often infected with the Epstein Barr Virus that causes mono, but they only get symptoms like those of the common cold, so it usually goes undiagnosed, while they continue to spread the disease like wildfire...it isn't until adolesence that the more serious symptoms like swollen tonsils, lymph nodes, and spleen (lots of swelling going on), and extreme tiredness present themselves. Which is also the basis for the illness's misnomer "the kissing disease." Since it appears to develop at the same time that kids are starting to make-out (well, some kids anyway...cause the deffinately wasn't ME in highschool) and it is spread through saliva. Can you tell I did my research? Anyway, my point is with both pink-eye and mono, the most likly source of infection is some brat at work...gotta stop making out with all those 5 year olds...
As for my doctor visits...The first time I went in, I had a temperature of 38.5 (101 F).
Doctor: You have a fever of 38.5...that is a pretty high fever...did you not notice?
Me: Well...I kinda suspected, but I don't have a thermometer...I should probably go buy one today...
Docter: Yeah, you probably should.
So he prescribed some meds to bring my fever down, and they took a blood test to find out what I had (though I think we all suspected). And I bought a thermometer at the drugstore when I went to get the prescription filled.
The next day, I went back to get the test results:
Doctor: Well, based on your test, it looks like you have mono. Here, on the results, you can see that your spleen is swollen...I mean surprisingly swollen, I couldn't believe when I saw these numbers! This is like the biggest spleen I've ever seen! See here, this measurement should be between 10-40 but yours is 304...isn't that surprising?
Me: Um...yeah...
Doctor: So, mono is contagious, so you have to be careful. But, it isn't contagious, like, if you are just sitting and talking to someone, like we are now...um...well, it is called "kisingu dizeezu..."
*note he was not trying to say just this part in English, they aparently use the same misnomer in Japanese as well.
So this is the point where I nearly fell off of my chair...first of all, a doctor in the US would never say "you have the kissing disease" because it is completely unprofessional and, did I mention, a misnomer...the doctor would say "It is spread through contact with saliva, such as sharing drinking or eating utensils or kissing on the mouth." Also, the doctor seemed pretty embarrassed to have to say that, which was hilarious as well...at least now I know what kind of person he thinks I am. Anyway, I told, him, OK, I understand, we call it that in America too.
After that I have been going to the doctor a few times a week for bloodtests and once for a sonogram of my spleen-baby, which continued to swell, but has now started to go back to normal, which means I am getting better! Except that another infection decided to join the party on my tonsils, which is why they are still so swollen I can barely swallow water. However, with a bacterial infection, I can take medicine to kill it, and I have already started to see improvement (the pustules are starting to go away, hooray!) and the doctor is confident that once I finish the medicine I should be well on the way to recovery.
As for work...the doctor said that there is little risk of infection for other adults (unless of course I makeout with them...or spit in their drink), but it would be better to stay away from children because 1. little kids are always trying to get all up in your business making it easier for them to pick up germs, and 2. with my swollen spleen, there is the risk of it rupturing if I am bumped or do too much physical activity, so I cannot be teaching a class where I have to run around and wrangle a bunch of hyper-active pre-schoolers. I told this to my boss, who decided that as long as I was contagious at all, I cannot be allowed to even teach just my adult classes...OK, whatever...I will take 3 weeks off, even if I run out of sick days and you don't pay me. In the end, that will mean that I really only have 2 weeks left of work before I start my new job and never have to see crazy boss again!!! And also, I would probably die if I had to get up, get all business casual, and go all the way to work until late at night. Gotta put my health first, right?
The good news is that mono is like the chickenpox-- once you get it once, you are immune for the rest of your life. So that means from now on all the making out with hosts, drinking random beers, and medical dumpster diving I want. Always a silver lining.
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