Enfin!

It started innocently enough. A low grade fever and a horsey throat in December of 2005. At the behest of one of the directors, I shuffled off to see her husband, the chair of the ENT department at the hospital, after coughing up my lungs for a few weeks. Dr Pillsbury, whom I love and fear, prescribed me some antibiotics and Nexium for the GERD and sent me on my merry way. Except...the fever never abated.

Dr Pillsbury and I spent January, February and March trying to identify the origin of the yuck. The fever broke every time I took antibiotics, but returned the moment I stopped. We decided that it must be a weakened immune system (which I already kind of have) aggravated by allergies. After enduring the needle stick allergy test (not as bad as one fears), it was determined that dust mites were not my friends. Allergy and asthma meds, along with allergy shots, were added to my daily routine and I bebopped along.

Then I went to Sweden.

Right about the time I left Stockholm for Alnö, home of Mamma och Pappa, I came down with an earache strong enough to cripple a giant. I sucked it up because I was on vacation but I really wasn't feeling 100%. I also recalled a time when Magnus and I both got the flu and decided the only thing that would make us feel better was getting entirely bombed out of our minds, so I spent the rest of my time in Sweden drunk. If I felt badly, I wouldn't really care. Alcohol is wonderful that way.

Once Dock and I got home, I started feeling crappier and crappier. The earache abated but the fever strengthened and would not go away. My stomach started to turn and reject any offerings of food. I was so lethargic, the idea of getting out bed was too much to handle. It became so insufferable, so intolerable, I dragged my ass to the GP, whom I despise.

The next thing I knew, I was working part-time and shuffling in and out of various offices of various specialists. Infectious Disease, in the event I picked up some sort of exotic köttbullar sjukdom while in Sweden. Rheumatology, as my body is just waiting for the day that the protein/compliment test (or whatever the phuck they call it) clicks to positive and I get to live with Lupus, too.

Hours spent with doctors who take care of the really sick, 21 vials of blood, two stool samples and one series of X-Rays later...no diagnosis, other than a running scrip for muscle relaxers to help with the kinks in my body thanks to Raynaud's. They tested for everything from Leukemia to Lupus to köttbullar sjukdom. Nothing.

Except for one thing:

GP: Kodos, your tonsils are huge!
ID Doc: Kodos, why haven't you had those removed?
Rheumatologist: You should have those tonsils looked at.

For years, I have shrugged off all commentary about my enlarged tonsils. It is odd enough that someone in my generation still has them at 35 years old. My pediatrician simply did not believe in surgery or medication, for that matter.

I decided to make an appointment, in late August, to visit with Dr Pillsbury to silence the tonsil critics. In the interim, I took a leave of absence from work because I was too exhausted to complete a full day's worth of work.

I returned to work three weeks ago. I went to Dr Pillsbury, the ENT G-d, today. Within fifteen minutes of my sitting in his exam room, the diagnosis came down. Tonsillitis. I'm a 35 year old woman with tonsillitis.

I'm not overly upset about the time invested in seeing specialists who couldn't help me. There's no point in getting hopped up over what we cannot change. I am, however, stunned that the malady was something so pedestrian and phucking obvious. All of this time spent, ailing, fretting, worrying and crying...to find out that my tonsils need to be removed.

Dr Pillsbury cautioned me that this may not be the cure-all. However, it will certainly help keep my immune system a little stronger if it's not having to fight off an infection which refuses to go away.

Dock is now joking that all non-essential organs will be removed from my body. Appendix - bye bye! Spleen - Adieu! Take a kidney for good measure, I have one to spare.

Now, I get to look forward to a brief surgery and rather challenging and painful recovery. But...at least...it may be the road to wellness. A much desired, much long for road to wellness.

I think my director summed it up the best when I shared the news with him. "G-d damn tonsils."