My throat was so sore that I couldn’t sleep (every hour or so I’d swallow and that would wake me up) so I went in to see my slightly odd doctor. He said, “It’s just a virus. Let’s make sure it’s not strep, because I’ve been wrong before.” He also said that all you can do for a virus is drink “soothing drinks” and take Tylenol. The rapid strep was negative, and I felt reassured until I got home and noticed that my hands felt weird and so did my lips. Fortunately, my expensive neighborhood is populated by doctors, so I just asked one of them if my symptoms sounded typical. The friendly epidemiologist was outside watching the birds, and she said it sounded like an adenovirus. After some google searching I think it might be a coxsackie virus: hand, foot, and mouth disease sounds very likely.

Yuck. I don’t suggest looking up anything medical on the internet.

The good news is that even with a fever of 100.1°F I felt well enough to drive myself to the doc and back. I only had one near mishap, and that’s because there are some intersections in town where accidents are meant to happen. I mean, seriously, look at this link. 60th and Stark is one light for that complicated intersection. If you’re on 60th, everything is green, and making a left turn onto Stark is certain doom. And yet I still try to turn left onto Stark. Of course I’d never have to go there if I wasn’t trying to visit my sister.