the post where ernie almost dies
Okay, so I’m a drama queen.
But I have been sitting here on my bed, water and penicillin by my alarm clock for two hours. All the while trying to think of a clever way of writing about how I went to the emergency room for the first time in my life yesterday morning at 10am.
So I’ll just start writing, and make this a two part post if need be.
So allergy season is here, right? And I get the stuff nose, the watery eyes, the sore throat. No worries, I think to myself, I’ll just buy some Claritin. And it works, to a point — the nose gets less stuffy, and while I can still feel the allergens (or what I like to call, “flying particles of death”) around my contact lenses, it’s not enough to make me want to gouge my eyes out with an ice cream scooper, like years past.
My throat, however, is still store. Whatever, I think to myself. Ain’t no such thing as a wonder drug.
On Friday night, I start getting a fever. No problem, I say to myself. I just take Tylenol every four-to-six hours and sweat the fever out.
I do this all day on Saturday. Nothing else. Get bone-chilling cold. Take Tylenol. Sweat the fever out. Wait four-to-six hours. Cold. Tylenol. Wait. Repeat.
Until Sunday, 3:30am. I reach over to my bottle and realize in horror: I am out of Tylenol. What do I do now? I know! I have an electric blanket! I’ll crank the blanket to high, I won’t get cold, I’ll sweat the fever out! Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? I crank the blanket to the highest setting, place a comforter OVER THE FUCKING BLANKET, JUST IN CASE I’M NOT WARM ENOUGH, and I snuggle up in bed, ready to drift off to bed.
I would blog what I dreamt about, but that would require a degree in Psychology and a separate blog entry. Let’s just say this — the electric blanket didn’t get me to break out in a sweat like I thought. Instead, my body temperature rocketed up to 104 degrees and with no way for any body heat to escape “caused my brain to fry,” as the triage nurse would delightfully tell me some seven hours later.
It’s 5am on a Sunday morning. I wake up. Hey, I feel fine! I go to the kitchen to get a glass of water and stumble into a chair. Hmm, that’s funny. I can’t walk straight.
I can’t feel my arms, either. Or my hands. Or my face. Oh wait, why is it taking me such difficulty to, you know, breathe?
Oh, shit.
So by now, I rip up my roommate out of his peaceful sleep (I was told to emphasize this by said roommate) and he drives me to the Emergency Room.
Nurse: You tried to sweat out a fever with an electric blanket?
Ernie: I was out of pills.
Nurse: You know that can fry your brain, right?
Ernie: … I know now.
Nurse: That explains why your body is numb and you couldn’t walk straight. You could have died. *long, dramatic pause*
Ernie: You know, I was really tempted to wear a face mask in the waiting room and just start coughing.
Nurse: I could also tell the security guard that you’re a bioterrorist, motherfucker.
Okay, the nurse didn’t say that last part. She DID, however, hand me a urine cup and told me to pee in it, to deduce whether I was a meth addict or just fucking weird.
To make what was to be a long story very short, the doctor told me that I had tonsilitis from a bacterial infection, and that I just did something very, very wrong for the fever that came with it. Some tests were taken and sent to various labs, I was given some penicillin and was on my way, after getting my right ear canal irrigated by a hot guy named Demetrio.
So, I’m not dead. My bad. I’ll try harder next time.
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