Excuse me. I have to go die now.*

The hot flashes started Saturday evening and continued through...well, they are still going on. Every morning when I wake up I feel like maybe I have the flu.

Tuesday morning was the worst day at that point, so I got up and called the doctor to make an appointment. Then I called my boss and left an incoherent message - something about asking her if I could just go back to sleep.

I woke up from my "nap" just in time to scurry out the door with the panicked feeling that I was going to be late and bumped back to a later appointment.

The thing I love hate about the doctor is that you I go because you I am not feeling well, after signing in, I get to sit in a waiting room full of a bunch of other people - most of them not feeling well. Here's how it goes:

9:50 - Sign in for a 9:45 appointment

9:52 - Find a spot in the corner where I continue to go through alternating chills and hot flashes

10:26 - get called up to fill out paperwork (which I swear I filled out last year). This may be routine but I don't go to the doctor that often, the past year has been an anomaly.
10:40 - get called back to the office
10:45 - nurse leaves me to sit there staring at a wall
10:58 - Enter, The Doctor

When the nurse took me back to my own personal waiting room there were blood pressure cuffs (2) on the little patient chair, so the nurse told me to have a seat in the "mom's" chair (you know - the chair your mom would sit in if you still took your mom with you to the doctor - I miss those days, mostly because my mom is a nurse and can interpret for me, but also because I am a big baby when I am sick).

Then she enters my information in to the system. She double checks my height with me, "5'10.5" right?" No, not at all. I took an awkward second of making a little noise and then started. "I'm normally 5'11" but last time she wrote down that I was 5'10.5", I explained. The last time I came to the doctor they took down my weight and the girl entered my height as 5'10.5" for no apparent reason. I had just let it go, maybe I had shrunk. So the nurse fixed it for me so I have been reinstated as a 5'11" individual.

She leaves and the doctor comes in a little later. She has an accent, don't know exactly what it is yet, but it's definitely South American. She asks me my symptoms and informs me that I am referring to the incorrect anatomy (I was saying neck, she told me that when it's in the front you call it the throat - I am okay with this, I appreciate knowledge in all forms). She doesn't touch the neck throat at all though. She does stick her fingers under my eyes and above my brow, asking me if that hurts. Sinus infection just got ruled out.

I do have a fever though, so she tells me to drink plenty of liquids and says I'm viral something...can't remember the word. All I could think was, "I'm so popular" cause I've gone viral. Then she tells me she wants to put in an order for some blood work, my mind immediately went to last time...when I threw up after they took my blood. This must have shown on my face because then she asked if I would mind if they took my blood. Of course not! Where the doctor fails to tell what is wrong with you, the blood will reveal what's happening.

So she walks me back to the lab and she tells me she'll call me tomorrow. I go in to get the needle and I'm trying to relax so I don't have a repeat of last time, but trying to relax is working me up. The girl snaps her glove and I say, "I don't like needles, so I am just going to close my eyes." She says that is fine and asks if I want to know what she is doing...No! I'm pretty sure I know why I am there and closing my eyes is so that I don't know what it's coming. I feel the needle go in and I count to 5 as slowly as I can. I ask if she is done before I open my eyes though. Then I apologize, because I thought that I would get over this needle thing as I grew older. She says, "I'm the same way" and I'm looking at her with those gloved hands that just drew my blood, those hands that now hold a vial of my blood...and she shakes it. It's like adding insult to injury - she shook my blood in front of me! I wanted to gag.

I went home after that - I went home and I got some blankets and I tried to just sleep. Ryan came over later and by the time he got there my little blanket had turned into a sauna and I was burning up. He wouldn't let me eat cake but he went and got us a pizza for dinner (yes - I wanted to eat some cake and yes - he let me have greasy pizza for dinner...and yes - I regretted it....and yes, I pined for the cake he wouldn't let me eat - you my friend are right on all counts).

Tuesday night I couldn't warm up, I had three blankets wrapped around me and I was still shivering. Ryan added two more and I think I finally started to warm. I woke up in the middle of the night burning. I got rid of all the blankets and most of my clothes. I woke up on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. I called my boss and left another incoherent message.

The doctor called me on Wednesday. She told me that my white blood cells were low and my platelets were low. She said they were 80 and my pharmacist (Amber) told me that "normal" is 120. Ryan (that little math whiz) informed me that that's a third! That explains the tiredness and the inability to regulate my body temperature. The Doctor told me I was really sick (though she didn't have a name for it and she wasn't calling anything in) and that she is going to call me back on Friday but if I start to feel worse then I should come back in or go to the hospital. She called me honey and sweetheart a lot and said a lot of "pleases", please rest, please don't do anything that would cause you to bleed, please call me if you feel worse. I'm going to admit, it was harder to function after that. I just kept thinking, "I'm low on platelets, I'm dying."

She is going to call back tomorrow, at least, that is what she told me she would do so I am assuming she will follow through. She seems kind of like Saul to me (Saul is my car salesman from September/October). He made a lot of follow up calls and I feel like she will make as many as necessary. In the meantime, I'm semi ok during the day and I start going down hill around 5 or 6 at night. I get colder before I catch fire and I'm hungry but don't feel like eating anything...and the Wii Fit says I've gained two pounds...I haven't even eaten anything! Cheap. Let's hope I get over this soon. I need to start working out.

Random tidbit, I have decided to call hemoglobin - Hemogoblins...I think it's more fun.