A Decidedly NOT-Awesome Adventure: Danny's Epic Battle With the Mysterious Infection of Doom!

Oh man ... what a week it's been.

For ladies and gentlemen, I have been sick. Really sick. Huddled on my bed, in agonizing pain, unable to sleep, eat, swallow, or talk sick. In the history of my all-new, all-awesome adventures here in LA, this was certainly one of my least-awesome adventures to date.

It all started two weekends ago, somewhere around the night of my annual Halloween movie marathon. I basically felt fine, and a great time was had by all ... but I could tell something was a little ... off. Just a scratchy feeling I had in my throat, like something was stuck there. I didn't think too much of it, and yet it persisted throughout the weekend. By Monday, my throat was scratchy, but I was also really starting to feel feverish and out-of-it. Only a week or two prior, I had been down and out with a sinus cold, so I thought that this was probably that coming back to haunt me, so to speak. But, I soon began to suspect that something was off about this. When I have a cold, I can usually suffer through it with some well-timed doses of Advil, Sudafed, etc. But in this case, those were having basically no effect. Again, something definitely seemed off.

Meanwhile, between a stressful work week and a busy, pre-Halloween week otherwise, I wasn't getting enough time to really stop and self-evaluate. I managed to have fun at the Back to the Future 25th anniversery screening Monday night, and later in the week at The Nightmare Before Christmas 4D, but I was definitely starting to feel weaker and less with-it as the days went by, and I couldn't ignore it anymore. By Thursday, I definitely felt full-on sick, though I went in to work on Friday to take care of a few things. On Friday afternoon though, I had a doctor's appointment to get looked at, as I figured I had to be suffering from strep throat or something of that nature. I was pretty out of it by that point though - feeling feverish, achy, and unable to eat solid food.

So last Friday, pre-Halloween weekend, I go to my doctor's office in Burbank. I'll admit, I haven't been there very often, and have been in the building in the last few years more to see an ankle specialist than anything else. I like that the office in Burbank is clean and big and professional-seeming. But, it's also a mess. The huge waiting room is always filled with all manner of crazy, only-in-LA characters, and the receptionists never seem to have any clue what's going on, and little sympathy for the legions of deathly-looking patients before them. I'll tell you this: there's nothing worse than being in a doctor's office and having to listen to a bunch of receptionists being loud and jokey while you're praying that it will - finally! - be your time to see the doctor. Speaking of which, that's one thing I hate about this doctor's office, and I know that it's a big problem in general ... you make your appointment, show up, wait for an hour if not more, wait for another half-hour once inside, and then - bam! - you get a two-minute assessment and that's it. Thank you, come again.

Well, this doctor in particular has got to be one of the most overbooked doctors in LA. It's ridiculous. I was referred to him by a coworker and he comes off as pleasant enough, but his lack of attention in this one seriously SCREWED ME OVER. I finally see him on Friday, after waiting forever. I explain how my throat's been bothering me, fever, etc. - I think I might have strep. Then, one look inside my mouth and he confirms it - strep. Okay ... Honestly, I was so eager to get better as soon as possible (it was almsot Halloween afterall) that I just wanted to get on some meds and be done with it. But, I also wanted a careful analysis of my condition, which I certainly did not receive. I ended up going back to work, grabbing my stuff, and heading out - I wasn't feeling great, but at that point I was thinking that at least I had gotten looked at and would soon be medicated and on the road to recovery. If only it were that easy ...

I was actually able to get my first medication - Cefadroxil - right at the doctor's office on Friday, along with cough syrup (why they gave me this I'm not sure, I never needed it), and a nasal spray. I eagerly took the first dose and began relaxing, hoping to feel better for Saturday. The fact is, I really didn't feel any better on Saturday, and I spent much of the afternoon huddled up on my couch shivering and in pain. It was bad. I was starting to get really depressed as well because I'd really been looking forward to the big annual Halloween / Page-O-Ween party that was set for Saturday night. I had my costume all ready to go, my friends would be there ... I really didn't want to miss out. I was basically resigned to skipping the party, but I got a little bit of a second wind a night and decided to make a quick cameo. I'm ultimately glad I was able to pop by - the fact was, Saturday night was probably the last time I would have felt even close to being up for it - it was severely downhill from there.

By Sunday afternoon I knew there was no way I'd be going to work on Monday. I could barely make it to the grocery store to buy myself supplies. I was mostly down for the count - feeling more and more out of it, as the pain in my throat really started to intensify. Because it was Halloween, my brother and I had planned to watch a scary movie and check out the premiere episode of The Walking Dead. When he came over, I was already huddled on my couch. I remember eating a bagel that night, because that was the last real solid food I had for a while. Nonetheless, the movie and TV shows cheered me up a bit, and I was hopeful that on Monday the medication would really start to kick in.

And yet, Monday is when things went from bad to worse. My throat was so messed-up I could barely talk, and when I did I sounded like Frankenstein. Seriously, the looks I got from people at the grocery store or drug store this past week were not fun - I felt like a horror movie monster every time I tried to communicate - and I was getting really frustrated and angry. My condition wasn't improving, at all. In fact, it was getting worse. Monday night was an absolute nightmare - the pain in my throat was so bad that I couldn't sleep, couldn't swallow ... and nothing was helping. Clearly, this medication wasn't working.

Tuesday I called the doctor's office and desperately tried to explain my situation. God forbid you get anyone on the line who actually knows what they're talking about. After numerous messages and call-backs, each one increasingly desperate, I briefly talked to the doctor, saying I thought I needed to switch medications. He didn't tell me to come in, didn't ask anything else, just told me to try the new antibiotic - azithromycin (aka a "Z-pack", which a few friends mentioned earlier was their recommended strep treatment). Tuesday evening I started the new drug, and early on, I was skeptical. Tuesday night was as bad if not worse than Monday - no sleep, excruciating pain in my mouth and throat ... just thinking about it now makes me wince. But as a sidenote, I did stumble out of my apartment to vote Tuesday afternoon - thank God the voting station was literally across the street. I felt bad for the nice women working the voting booth - they were trying to be friendly to me, but I looked and felt like a wreck and just wanted to get in and get out (and vote Democrat). Hey, at least I managed to get my vote in, although I think the stresss of watching CNN and MSNBC that evening, and seeing the disappointing midterm results, only added to my poor condition.

Wednesday I was seriously upset, frustrated, and feeling like crap. My ability to speak was becoming totally impaired because of all the build-up and irritation in my throat, and it was pretty embarassing and annoying (and physically painful!). I wanted to give the azithromycin at least one full day to potentially kick in though, so I was basically waiting things out for a little while longer. That said, the thought of one more pain-filled, sleepless night filled me with dread. The other thing was that I was quickly losing weight and losing energy. I couldn't swallow solid foods and was basically subsisting on stuff like yogurt smoothies, soup, pudding, jello, etc - and even that stuff was hard for me to get / keep down. This was getting serious. Pants-falling-down (literally) serious.

Thursday, I was at the end of my rope. I called the doctor's office and told them I needed to come in. I had a standing appointment on Friday that I had made as a "check-in" a week earlier, but I couldn't wait another day - I had to do something. They kept telling me there was nothing they could do - my doctor was out of the office and they had zero other openings with anyone else. ARGH! I was seriously at my wit's end. I got up to go to a clinic but decided to call the office one more time. "I'm about to drive to a clinic, because I'm in a ton of pain here, unless you tell me there's an opening." Yep, suddenly there was an opening with one of the office's other doctors.

So I go in, and luckily have a slightly shorter wait. The problem is that this doctor, while nice, seemed to have no clue what was going on with me. By the way, I love how you can be standing there on your deathbed, and still they insist on weighing you and taking your blood pressure. Jesus! I've just been waiting in the ninth level of hell - aka your godforsaken waiting room - for 45 minutes and now you need my blood pressure? I'll give you a hint - it's probably high! In any case, I am basically ready to do anything this doctor tells me - I don't care that she looks younger than me and seems to draw no conclusions from lookign in my mouth / throat. So yeah, that whole visit is sort of a blur, except that I somehow came away with two more prescriptions - one for vicodin and one for some sort of throat-steroid thing. Once I got home and thought about it, I realized - why the hell would I suddenly start taking these? This doctor didn't even know what was wrong with me. I guess the idea of having super-strong pain meds was nice in theory, but I mostly just wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. Plus, pain meds like that are for wussies - amiright?

Seriously though, far and away the best thing to come out of my otherwise pointless doctor visit on Thursday was that I was referred to a throat specialist, who I booked an appointment with for Friday. Otherwise, Thursday night was again pretty miserable, although I seriously do have to give a shout out to Community and 30 Rock on NBC for cheering me up just a little with a pair of hilarious episodes (The Office was decent but not great, haha). Seriously - I was in too much pain to physically laugh, but that was some quality comedy and it helped get me through a particularly rough evening. Oh, and I'll give some credit to John Noble and the rest of the cast o Fringe for being awesome as always, even if the episode itself (the show's first in several weeks) was only so-so by Fringe's usually high standards. See, even in this epic saga about my health problems, you get some TV reviews.

Anyways, Friday morning saw a particularly painful visit to my doctor's office in Burbank - the standing appointment I'd had from a week earlier. I was sort of angry - did he even realize what I'd been suffering through? The wait in the waiting room Friday morning was absolutely agonizing to boot - it was the weirdest assortment of people ever. This weird old woman carting around a bag with a dog in it (poor dog - I seriously wanted to yell at her - WTF are you doing stuffing that dog into a bag, crazy old woman!). This old couple who kept yelling at each other. This insanely obese man who looked like he was about to keel over. And this was just a general doctor's office on a Friday! I waited in that waiting room for well over an hour - my appointment was for 11:30 am, I got there at 11:25, and got called into the doctor's office close to 12:45 pm. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. No, they weren't. I think the doctor could sense my desperation when he finally arrived though. I had actually written out a list of points for him on the back of a CVS receipt. I wasn't messing around. My points included things like "Are you sure this is strep throat? If not, why did you tell me it was? If it's not strep, what else could it be?" I figured there was no way it was strep throat at this point - the chances of that and then having two medications not working to alleviate the symptoms at all was basically slim to none. The doctor administered a throat culture ('bout time!) and a blood test. He said he'd be in contact with the specialist I was going to see later. Hopefully, some progress was being made.

I then drove down to Sherman Oaks to see the throat specialist. At this point, I was not feeling well and was just desperate for any sort of help. The driving part I actually didn't mind that much though, to be honest. It was nice just to be out of my apartment and not in a drugstore or a waiting room. As soon as I got to the specialist's office, a sense of relief came over me. I walked in to a small, tranquil waiting room, and the staff smiled and was expecting me. I filled out some paperwork, and within minutes was in with the doctor. Very nice guy - reassuring and clearly knew what he was doing. He used some interesting, advanced-looking equipment to peer into my throat. He sympathized with all my pain ("looks like a bomb went off in there"), and assured me he'd help me out. Now, I still had to wait for the throat culture and blood test to come back (which likely won't be until Monday), but, he seemed fairly certain that I'd never had strep, but a different sort of infection that would need a different sort of treatment. The doctor prescribed me an antibiotic, throat steroids, and a "swish and spit" oral medication. I was eager to get started. Of course, before I left, the doctor gave me a steroid shot in my left shoulder to help with my breathing (I was such a mess it had actually gotten hard to breathe a bit). He told me it was going to hurt, and before I knew what to say, my arm hurt like a mother. In a weird way it wasn't bad though, as the pain in my arm was sort of a distraction from everything else. I drove home and, once I got back to my apartment, it hit me that I was freaking exhausted. I lay down and could barely stay awake. Next thing I knew it was early evening, and I wanted to make sure to get to CVS to pick up my new medications.

Now, CVS is a whole other can of worms. The one by me in Burbank is a total madhouse no matter what hour of day you go. They are always seemingly understaffed, and their lines take forever - both for checkout and for prescription pick-ups. And this CVS is always ground zero for crazies. The typical crowd is a mix of porn star types, washed-up 80's rockers, bikers, college kids, entertainment biz yuppies, and always, always lots of little kids running around and screaming. Just like the doctor's waiting room, the prescription counter at my local CVS - especially when you're sick as a dog and want to collapse - is a special sort of hell on earth. (And, sidenote: why is it that CVS, basically the last place you ever want to run into people you know, is always where you run into people you know?).

The good news is that, very quickly after taking that first pill Friday evening, I could feel a change. My energy level seemed to get a bit of a boost, and my throat very quickly seemed to feel a bit soothed. I was and am still having pain when I swallow, but I no longer had that constant rawness and pain. On Friday night, I was really, really happy - even though I still had a long way towards recovery, I was already imagining myself as being better. As I lay down to go to sleep Friday night, and realized that I didn't have the intense pain of the last couple of nights anymore, it felt like a miracle. I woke up Saturday extremely happy at the thought that I had just gotten a full night's sleep for the first time in almost a week.

Now, Saturday was still something of a reality check. My throat was slowly but surely getting better, but it was still painful to swallow and my ability to eat solid foods still wasn't really there. Plus, even though I didn't feel feverish anymore, it hit me that, overall, I was still pretty weak from lack of eating. The whole ordeal took it's toll, and even though the intense pain in my throat was dissolving, it was still going to be a long road back to good health. The most satisfying thing though was that I could actually talk in a coherant manner. Talking to my parents on the phone, I'm sure I sounded like a new man. Even though my voice was still not that strong, trust me, as compared to my Chewbacca-like voice from earlier in the week, it was night and day.

Of course, all this time I was also getting pretty paranoid about missing so much work. I hadn't even had the chance the put an "Out Of Office" message on my email the previous Friday, so I was nervous that many who I work with hadn't been realizing that I was out. Plus, I was just feeling pretty out of the loop, and I had all kinds of nagging worries that I was missing important stuff or that things weren't getting done in my absence. So, like a puritanical loser, I sat up Saturday evening and drove myself to my office. Actually, it made a lot of sense. I live very close to work and I could go in and go through my email and whatnot without having to deal with anyone, risk getting anyone sick, etc. It took me forever just to go through all the lapsed email, but I could at least do it at my own pace, and hey, I now have a proper "Out of Office" message up.

And that brings me to today. I've had enough energy that I've been trying to clean / sanitize my apartment, do laundry, etc. My two main lingering problems are a.) I still have a decent amount of pain in parts of my throat when I swallow, and b.) I just still feel a bit weak / out of it from eating so little for so long. I'm trying to expand my diet a bit and get in some solids. Meanwhile, I'm anticipating talking to my general doctor and the throat specialist tomorrow to hear the verdict on the tests. All this time, and I still don't know exactly what's wrong with me. I am grateful that the medications I'm taking now seem to be working, but want to be 100% sure I'm on a proper path to effectively treat whatever it is, exactly, that's going on with me. So I wish I could wrap this up and say I'm all better and back in business, but it's definitely premature for that. Still, I do feel like the worst is easily over, and am just glad to hopefully be on the upswing after what was a pretty nightmarish week.

Thank you guys for reading - I can't wait to dive into some movie and TV stuff soon. Suffice it to say, I'll be excited to be blogging about The Walking Dead as opposed to feeling like one of 'em.

Peace out and thanks again.