Home sick

The last few days have been quite stressful!

If I back up about two weeks... I returned to the office after my trip to Chicago, and found out that two people on my floor had the swine flu. As my colleague was telling me this, I was panicking inside. Not a good thing to be exposed to when you're pregnant! But no one at the office knows I'm pregnant yet, and I didn't want to tell anyone before I told my boss, so I stayed calm, and emailed my nurse for advice.

She said to work from home for the next week if possible, so I promptly left the office and worked from home all last week. Not really a big deal, and I felt fine all week, and no one else at the office developed any symptoms. So I went back to work on Monday.

Well. I woke up on Tuesday with a scratchy throat, which got quickly worse during the day. At around 3pm noticed a runny nose, too, and called my regular doc. Luckily, she could see me right away. She takes one look at my throat, backs away and says "oh... you certainly have an infection". She thinks it's strep, which is a relief, because penicillin is fine to take during pregnancy, as well as Sudafed for the symptoms (I checked with her, the pharmacist, my OB, and Dr Google... just to be safe!). So she takes a strep culture, but also writes out a scrip for a nasal swab to test for swine flu, just to calm my nerves, and sends me off to Labcorp to do the swab.

Luckily, Tuesday is the one day that Labcorp stays open until 5:30, so I head over there about 10 minutes away. They tell me they don't do the swabs, that the doc needs to do the swab and then I can bring it over for them to analyze. I argue, but they won't do it. So I head back over to the doc, who was surprised that they didn't do it. She takes the swab for me, and then suggests that it would be best if I take over both the strep and the swine swabs so that Labcorp will have them both right away instead of having to wait. OK, that's fine - I'd results as soon as possible, so anything to help that along. There was a little confusion about the swabs - she was trying to combine them on the same form, but I wanted two separate forms so they didn't get confused, so finally we were set.

I get back to Labcorp, and I don't have my insurance card!! The doc never gave it back once she made the copy. I beg Labcorp to look me up - I've been there many times during IVF, and they finally do, so that's fine. But then one of the swabs is missing! It wasn't in my purse, not in my car, it's simply gone out of the sample bag!

So I go back to the doc, who found the swab - it had fallen out on the floor, and also had my insurance card. Then back to Labcorp to drop off the final swab. Three trips to the doctor, and three trips to Labcorp. In a thunderstorm.

Unbelievable! I have to say, I have a new appreciation for the efficiency of the IVF doctor / lab process. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!

So I've been sick as a dog, and even after all that running around two days ago, I still have no results. Labcorp won't release them to me, and I can't get in touch with my doc. But I feel pretty confident it's just strep - I don't have a fever, and the penicillin seems to be helping. I'm hoping that by taking it easy today and tomorrow, I will be up for the shore on Saturday, and the BBQ we're supposed to be hosting for friends on Sunday!

I have a blood draw appointment next week at the OB, and I'm thinking I'll see if they can do a quick u/s while I'm there, just to check that everything's OK. With feeling so sick, and all this medication I've been taking, I'd like to see for myself that things are normal (plus, that will be a nice midpoint before my next regularly scheduled OB appointment to calm my nerves!!).

Meanwhile, I'm partly working, partly doing some organizing around the house, and mostly relaxing and watching TV. I'm ashamed to say, I've gotten hooked on Real Housewives, and have watched all of NJ, NY and Atlanta, and am now catching up on Orange County. Pure trash, but I'm addicted!!!