Sick

Dealing with the unexpected has never been my strong suite. I'm a planner, as I've mentioned before. I wish that God would tell us in advance, "Ok, you're going to be sick _______ days in 2011. Let me know when you'd like them to take place." And then I could plan for them.
Yesterday, out of the blue, my throat started hurting. I thought maybe it was because I had Diet Coke at lunch instead of water....I don't know why I would think this, Diet Coke has never before been the cause of a sore throat....I was just trying to blame it on something.
You also may want to know that I believe I shoulda/coulda/woulda been a nurse or some other medical professional in a former life. I love all things medical. I diagnose Nate all the time....much to his chagrin! And I'm right....well, usually.....except for the time he had appendicitis instead of the flu...but hey, in my defense, he doesn't communicate very much when sick!  He says, "I don't feel good." My diagnostic mind goes to work. I ask "what hurts", "how does it feel", "what kind of pain is it" questions and he responds very vaguely. I guess my alarm needs to be, if Nate says, "I think I'm too sick to go to work" how I need to interpret that is, "Go directly to the emergency room!" So, back to the illness at hand....which is MINE by the way..... So I drank a ton of water, thinking I was dehydrated. The cold water felt good...but the pain didn't go away. I took Alka Seltzer Cold Medicine because I believe that is the be all cure all when it comes to colds and their symptoms. Thinking that it would zap it before it really started and I'd wake up feeling calm and refreshed and it would all be a bad dream. I further prescribed an early bed time. I was in bed and preparing to fall asleep around 7:30 pm. I had a large glass of ice water beside the bed just in case I needed drinks throughout the night. I was ready for feeling better. However, my plan and prescription did not work. Throughout the night I woke up feeling clammy and then hot and parched and then chilled. And my throat felt like it was filled with glass. Because I took the Alka Selter Cold Medicine Night time formula, I wasn't all that with it throughout the night to make any medical decisions. But, when my alarm went off I quickly began assessing my health quotient. Sore throat? Still there in a larger than life way. Prescription: salt water gargle, STAT!  No aches , so that's good. But holy moly, there are some VERY enlarged glands on my neck. And when I swallow, I hear/feel a crackly sound in my ears.
I want to hold up a big stop sign to my body and say, "Uh, excuse me?  Do you not know that we have things to do? Do you not know we are preparing to go out of town? Do you not know that my to do list is long and I don't have time for this?"  But for some reason, I don't think my body is listening right now....it's too busy trying to avoid swallowing.