Some good luck for a change

I woke up this morning with my annual bout of strep throat. Which is weird in itself - it usually comes on over the course of a couple days, but today it came on suddenly and so painfully that it woke me up at 4 am.

So I called my doctor, and their voicemail told me that my doctor was on "a leave of absence for reasons beyond her control." Uh oh.

So I called again later and asked what to do, and the receptionist said she could get me in with the other doctor at the clinic at 10 tomorrow. I was very happy about that, because last time I called my doctor with strep it was a Thursday and they couldn't get me in until Tuesday. So I accepted that appointment, then the receptionist called me back an hour later (on her own initiative! she didn't used to do this!) and said they'd just got an opening for 4 pm today. So I took that.

So I was happy to have an appointment, but a bit nervous about seeing this other doctor. He administered my third Gardasil and seemed a bit judgy about it, and I was worried that he might make me take a swab (which is an ordeal in and of itself - I have a bitch of a gag reflex) and take it to the lab and get results back before he'd give me antibiotics, which meant a couple more days of suffering because I've had this every year, I know it's not going to get better without antibiotics. So I looked him up on RateMDs.com and got perhaps a sense of his character from the other patients' reviews, which I used to tailor my pitch.

So I went in at 4, and was seen at 4!!!! This is astounding - usually there's 30-60 minutes' wait!!! I described the situation to him, refraining from diagnosing myself based on the info on RateMDs, and good-naturedly warned him about my gag reflex when I saw him wielding a tongue depressor. Poke and poke, no tongue depressor, and he announces that I have a throat infection. I smile and nod. I then allow him to brief me on an antibiotic I've taken a dozen times before, and trot off to Shoppers, prescription in hand. By 5:00 I was comfortably ensconced in my apartment with a nice cup of tea, my first dose of antibiotic already taken, just finishing up the last few hundred words of my text for tomorrow. It could not have gone more smoothly.

I know I'm generally anti-thankfulness, but right now I'm thankful. I'm thankful this appointment went as smoothly as humanly possible (I was fully prepared to still be in the waiting room right now), I'm thankful that my education and job indirectly gave me the skills to convince a strange doctor that writing me a prescription without taking a swab really is the best option, I'm thankful that I live in a sexy high-density neighbourhood where my disappearing doctor is replaced by another doctor in the same building and where I can drop of my prescription, go buy juice, pick up my prescription, and then walk home, and I'm thankful I have a job that will accomodate a last-minute medical appointment like this! All of which really comes back to money buying happiness.