Probably still not dying?

Late last night, just as I was getting ready for bed, I got a sore throat and was instantly terrified. But I thought I'd try to forestall any true panicking until the morning, at least. Y'know...mebbe it'd just go away on its own, right? Well, it didn't. I got up this morning and it hurt really badly and was also quite swollen (on the right side). So I called Dr. Gibb's office (I actually wanted to call Dr. McCann, since he's the one who first told me to call if I got sick or anything, and he's way closer and more convenient, but Kyle persuaded me to call the actual throat doctor...), and his nurse called me back a few minutes later. (I was actually embarrasingly choked-up when I was first talking to the nurse, but I was really scared. By the time she called back, I'd gotten a bit better control of myself.) Anyway, Dr. Gibb wanted me to come see him at 2 pm, so I did.

Now, Kyle was supposed to be spending all day on campus, studying for and then taking a test, but the moment I said my throat hurt, he came over here instead. I was very grateful for this; he has a very soothing effect on me. But I still feel bad. Why are these things never convenient?

Anyway, we drove down to Dr. Gibb's office in Payson. He looked in my throat and said I definitely have some acute tonsilitis going on, but he didn't see any abscess threat (phew!). They did a strep test, which came back negative. (Basically, I got the same diagnosis as I got the first time I went to Urgent Care: it's not strep. This leads me to the following conclusion, based on all that came after that: I'm probably not dying. But it's possible.) He gave me some antibiotics because, as we all know now, there are other bacteria it could be. And if it's not another bacteria, it will at least be preventative.

Personally, I'm betting on it being that mono Kyle had a while back, especially since we didn't know it was mono for so long. But Dr. Gibb said a mono test isn't effective until a week or so into it, so it would be useless to do one right now. I have to go back in a week if I'm not better, so I expect he'll order one then (if I have to go back).

So for now, I'm taking my antibiotics, and ibuprofen for the swelling (it's really painful to swallow, but the ibuprofen helps that a lot) and just hoping that this will all go away soon. As Kyle pointed out this morning, it just wouldn't be fair for this to be anything serious. And since life is always fair, I am now completely unconcerned...