A visit to the doctor / CVS/ pregnancy

October 3, 2017

I was feeling sick and couldn’t even swallow, super sakit. My Kuya Junior told me I needed antibiotic. Eh dito pala sa America hindi pwedeng basta na lang bibili from CVS or Walgreens. I needed a doctor’s prescription.

I texted my sister at 3 in the morning and she responded right away. I asked her to inform Cris, an old friend of theirs who works at CVS to get me antibiotics. My sister told me the same thing. Hindi daw pwede. I have to get a prescription. She contacted her childhood friend Philip whose wife is a doctor.

11:30 am

I went to see her at their clinic some half hour away. Tila meron na akong sinat. She looked at my throat and they are red and sobrang namamaga. I have pharyngitis daw. Sobra daw siguro bumaba ang resistensya ko. She said September to March is the flu season here in the US. I told her I just had a flu vaccine last February, eh minsan daw iba ang flu strain dito sa America.

She gave me a prescription for 10 days Amoxicillin of 875 mg twice a day.
For body aches I can take paracetamol. Dra. Bang is very nice. First time I’ve met her kasi si Aileen ang friends talaga nila. It’s a big relief to have a kababayan / family friend to be around in times of this. I am in a foreign country, and my siblings are not here.

I took Uber from their office to go to the CVS branch where Cris works. I must have fallen asleep. The driver woke me up in front of CVS. It looked different. The building is old and the surroundings look foreign. Just the same it’s still CVS. I asked one of the CVS staff which part of town are we in, she said from where I wanted to go, the Uber driver went to the opposite direction. She told me I should not have tipped him. I didn’t.

I went to the pharmacy and it took them a while to process my order of antibiotics. Meron pang konting interview. They asked me to come back after 15 minutes.

And before they handed over the tablets, there was a consultation pa. The pharmacist or nurse told me that I have to take the tablets with something in my stomach. She told me that one of the side effects is it would weaken the effect of my birth control pills. And that I should tell my husband that during the 10 days period I might get pregnant.
I answered “okay”.

Firstly, my husband is not around here with me for the next ten days. Secondly, even if he is around, making love is no longer spontaneous when you’ve been married for 130 years. You have to check each other’s schedule, mood, body rhythms, cholesterol levels, platelet counts, stress test and blood pressure levels.
Before lips to lips, tanungin muna “kumusta yung chest x-ray mo, clear ba ang lungs?” Mahirap na baka mahawahan pa ng TB.

Our next schedule into this very tiring, exhausting, stressful kind of activity called s e x is after the annual executive check up results are all in maybe in February 2018. If I get pregnant prior to that, he will not wonder who the guy is, he will wonder where I stole the ovary.

Oh well I do want to get pregnant. Instead of carrying fats in my stomach, I’d rather carry around a cute baby.

2 pm
I went to eat breakfast and lunch combination so I could take the first tablet.

I took home the gyoza and rice and had them for dinner.

I was worried I would get sick. I have lots of things to do and I can’t get sick. I am scheduled to travel to Washington DC next week, and go home come back, go home, come back, so there’s no time, space and place for getting sick.

I just stayed in bed the rest of the day. My throat still hurts when I swallow but I no longer squirm from pain. I am hoping tomorrow will be a much better day.

Feel better ohhhhh my buhay.