Strep Throat!

My daughter, Wynne, has a very high tolerance for pain, and for discomfort and discontent in general. As such, when she woke in time for school yesterday telling me, in a gravelly voice, that she had a sore throat, I took her seriously. Rather than sending her to school, or rushing her to the 8:30 a.m. walk-in deadline at our GP's office, I told her to go back to sleep and hoped I could get her an appointment later in the day.

Luckily I was able to get her in right after lunch, which worked out beautifully with her sick-sleep schedule. By the time Wynne got to see the doctor, she was running a fever and was very lethargic. When he inspected her throat, he recoiled in alarm, and then summoned me to see for myself. It was indeed shocking. The tonsils had totally eclipsed the opening and were covered in white sores. Sorry, hope you weren't eating as you read that. Noone was surprised that the strep test came back positive. Two shots were quickly administered -- steroids for the swelling and a big dose of antibiotics to give her a head start. A full 10 day course of antibiotics was also prescribed, albeit in liquid form so it could slide past the gauntlet of her tonsils.

Amazed that our health crisis was so expeditiously addressed (I'm not accustomed to a swift and efficient solution to our health problems because of the year-long migraine battle with my son) I walked Wynne back out to the car to settle her in at home with some soup or ice cream or otherwise inoffensive sustenance. As I fastened my seat belt, I noticed a little tickle in the back of my throat.

"It's psychosomatic," I said to only myself as I remembered my daughter's horrific tonsils. I shook it off with a physical shake of my head and then focused upon my little one for the rest of the evening. Yes, I was more tired than usual. Yes, I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. and slept through to 6:45 a.m. Yes, when I woke I knew that I, too, was sick.

"But it's not strep," I thought to myself.

Nevertheless, feeling a bit alarmist and apologetic for "jumping the gun" I walked in to the GP's office this morning. I explained I was not nearly as sick as Wynne had been yesterday, but was nervous about everyone coming down with the contagious virus, yada, yada, yada. Throat swab -- positive.

So now I am on my back, listening to what my body wants. It is so specific in its cravings during illness. Today it was whole grains and miso. I dissolved a teaspoon of miso in warm, filtered water, then added leftover brown and wild rice, and topped the whole thing off with some arugula and sprouted peas, aduki beans and lentils. Perfect.

I'm pretty positive this combo would not have occurred to me otherwise, but I have recently been reading about macrobiotics, so that influence must have lodged in my sub-conscious until needed.

That's enough for today. Time to go back to my soup-eating, lysol-spraying existence.