Alternate Title 1: Yes, the coming zombie apocalypse is partially my fault.
Alternate Title 2: Wikipedia is better than doctors.
So this morning I tried to drink some water and the touch of the water on the back of my throat was so painful I choked and gagged and spat it out (I was lucky not to actually vomit – from pain rather than nausea). It finally dawned on me that I was right and the doctor I saw on Wednesday was wrong. The bastard dazzled me with his Wikipedia page (WHICH HE MANUALLY ALTERED TO MAKE HIMSELF MORE LIKELY TO BE RIGHT!!*) and “pharyngitis” technobabble.
Today I went to my regular doctor, who said my throat was so awful-looking she wished she had a medical student around to show it to. THANK YOU. Of course she immediately gave me antibiotics (ie real medicine for a real problem), and then we spent our usual ten minutes gossiping about the rest of my family.
The reason doctors hesitate to give antibiotics (ie magic pills that actually fix stuff) is that the Western world takes far too many of them, and the overuse of antibiotics leads to the development of superbugs. So I assume that’s what’ll bring on the zombies (but if Brad Pitt and an awesome novel are involved, can you really stay mad at me?)
This is not the first time an unfamiliar doctor has refused to listen to me saying, “This is a serious problem”. I’ll be taking away the lesson – confirmed more than a dozen times for me personally – that I know my body better than any doctor, and my internet-assisted self-diagnoses are correct 9 times out of 10 (and on the 10th time, I’ve underestimated the seriousness of my condition – eg when I thought I had fibroids and found out a year later that it was endometriosis). So that’s a useful life lesson.
*He crossed out the bit that said viral pharyngitis is the case in 40-80% of patients and wrote “80%” instead. Viral pharyngitis is fancy talk for, “You have a cold, you big whiner.” Mine is, of course – as I told him immediately upon walking in – bacterial. It is much more painful, and needs antibiotics. Thanks for two days of unnecessary pain, asshole.