I Haven’t Been Feeling Well

It started last Tuesday with a little tickle in the back of my throat and some sneezing but thought it was just my allergies so I took some over-the-counter pills and didn’t think much of it.  The next day I had chills and a fever, I was in and out of the bathroom what seemed like every fifteen minutes, I had to blow my nose every two minutes – I was a mess.  It was all I could do to get out of bed and make it to the couch.  I didn’t even put on my jeans; I spent the entire day in my flannel lounge pants and a long-sleeve tee-shirt

Now Ian will tell you when I get sick, I’m a fucking grouch; I snap and bitch and complain. It isn’t a pretty sight.  And this was the first time T.J. saw me sick.  Let’s just say that he spent a heck of a lot of time in his room, staying out of the way.  But Ian was such a doll.  When he was home, he made me tea and soup even though I was so cranky.  That's why I love him so much.  I spent two days like that – blowing my nose and coughing up my lungs.

By Friday I was feeling better, almost like my old self, but I couldn’t shake my cough and when I lay down I couldn’t really breathe comfortably; I wheezed and rasped.  So yesterday, Saturday, I went to my doctor.  I really like Dr. Merriweather and his staff.  He’s an older man, head full of gray hair and one of the few who still has a private practice.  He’s a little gruff and doesn’t usually sugar-coat things; that’s one of the things I like about him.  And I don’t mind telling you, that he’s the only man old enough to be my father who has seen me completely naked.  And he’s still kind of sexy.  He doesn’t belong to a clinic and his office is in his house that’s only a few blocks from where I live, so his exam room is really private. His nurse, Rita lives in the neighborhood too.  I’ve see her in the supermarket a few times.  She’s been with Dr. M for so many years that they act like an old married couple.  Then there’s Ryan, his hunky, handsome Physician’s Assistant who has been with Dr. M a couple of years now.  Ryan works out at the gym Ian and I belong to and we’ve run into each other a few times there.

Anyway, after waiting nearly an hour and a half, I was finally called into the exam room. Ryan took my weight (164 lbs, thank you very much), temperature and blood pressure before Dr. M came in to see me.  The exam was fairly quick, he just asked me a bunch of questions, looked down my throat, in my ears, and listened to my lungs.  It seems I have an upper respiratory infection, something I haven’t gotten since I was a kid.  He gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and an inhaler, made a follow-up for two weeks from now and had Ryan draw some blood for tests.  When Ryan was done bleeding me, he handed me a cup to pee in and a vial for the sample and showed me to lavatory.  When I was done, I gave Ryan the vial and said my good-byes.  

I still don’t feel completely well, but at least the wheezing has more or less stopped.  In two weeks, I go back for a complete physical and get the results of my blood and urine tests.  Hopefully everything will be fine.  Dr. M even did a rapid HIV test that came back negative, but he said he still wanted to send it out to the lab for confirmation.  All my HIV test thus far have been negative, but still I’m a little nervous.  I know the virus can lay dormant for a long time.  It didn’t show up on my last blood test four months ago, but you never know.  That’s why I get tested regularly.  I haven’t had unprotected sex with anyone other than Ian and Billy for years so I just hope none of the sexual escapades I had before I met Ian infected me. And not just for my sake, but for Billy and Ian too.  If I have it, it’s gonna be hard to tell them.  And it’s gonna be even harder to tell T.J. if I have it.  He just lost our father; I don’t want to tell him he could lose me too.