Crow. I'm Eating It

I should have taken the antibiotics.

So I awakened this morning to discover that something the size of a balled up sock had taken up residence at the back of my throat. "Hmm," I think to myself. "It's a good thing T isn't here. I must have been a total snorebeast last night." I get up and go get a drink thinking that the sensation I am feeling is that dry sticky feeling your get from sleeping with your mouth open.

I have difficulty swallowing the water and the unpleasant-but-not-particularly-painful sensation doesn't go away. I try to look down my own throat, but... yeah. That didn't work. I fish around my mouth and discover that there is something huge and puffy in there where no huge and puffy thing should be, gagging myself in the process. I think to myself, "Self, that can't be your uvula. You didn't put your finger back that far. Is it a tumor?"

I am so perplexed by my condition that I actually asked Z's teacher, Mrs. C, if she would look down my throat and tell me what was going on in there. (Having your spouse 500 miles away is SO AWESOME! I get to have relative strangers looking down my throat!) She agreed - without looking at me too strangely - and pronounced it, "Red. Really red."

If my tonsils swell, I can usually get them back to their normal size with the application of some breakfast and a warm beverage. The beverage helped, but the cereal literally got STUCK in between my giant mass and the roof of my mouth. Good times.

I called my nurse practitioner, who was able to fit me in an hour later. I slunk into the exam room with eyes downcast and lead off, "I should have taken the antibiotics." She was very gracious and didn't tell me "I told you so," even though she would have been right.

A quick peek into my maw had her eyes widening in surprise. "Your uvula is HUGE. (Probably filled with the feathers from all that crow I was eating!) I bet it feels like you have to swallow all the time, huh?" Indeed, it did. She prescribed penicillin and advised me to eat a soft diet: mashed potatoes, apple sauce, yogurt (to help with the, erm, ailment sure to follow the antibiotics), bananas.

Apart from the Diflucan, I now have the diet of a 9 month old. And I guess I'll be farting feathers twice a day for the next week as I dutifully take my antibiotics.