Things stated going downhill when I took the Mucinex.
You know — the Mucinex that I DoorDashed to my house, along with a half gallon of orange juice, a 6-pack of 7Up, and apparently a gallon of apple juice that didn’t look that big on my phone’s little screen.
All to the tune of around $33, give or take.
Surely I’ve taken Mucinex before, but maybe it wasn’t this particular Dollar Store brand of Mucinex — “Flem-B-Gone”.
Because this brand of Mucinex almost killed me.
It’s amazing how there are sweat glands covering every inch of your body. And when your blood pressure drops faster than a cannon ball in a swimming pool, every single one of those little sweat glands will burst open and drench you in an icy slime.
That happened to me about 90 minutes after I popped the Mucinex, and about 30 seconds after that is when the explosive diarrhea started.
Did I make it to the bathroom?
Technically, no.
After managing not to die on the toilet like Elvis, I crawled back into bed and tried to come to terms with my impending death there, on the bed. Yes, I thought about calling the squad, but my will to live is not particularly strong and anyway, I was already feeling marginally better.
Only to repeat steps steps 2 and 3, supra, about 90 minutes later.
On the plus side, the full body purge that left me feeling like an empty banana peel did manage to break my fever.
But this morning, in the best tradition of “a day late and a dollar short”, I decided to actually see a medical professional.
Yes, my home pulse oximeter said my O2 saturation was fine (yes, I have a home pulse oximeter, what’s your point), and my fever was almost gone. But my lungs still felt a little crackly if I breathed out really hard.
Now, I haven’t bathed in five days and I might have COVID (The Cleveland Clinic: “Rapid results tests? We don’t need no stinkin’ rapid results tests!”) but I feel like Ubering sweaty and bedraggled people around in your personal vehicle just kind of goes with the territory.
Unfortunately, I lost precious Uber-scheduling time to a terminally Japanese woman at the Cleveland Clinic call center — which is in Ireland, by the way — while we debated how to spell my doctor’s name (third time’s the charm), only to discover Dr. Nagel had no openings today, but that someone named Brittany did, at 9:40 a.m.
It was now 9:20 a.m.
Me: “What’s Brittany’s last name?” (Big BIG mistake)
Call center person: “It is a very unusual name. It is Q like Quebec, U like umbrella, E like — ”
And then she must have noticed the time in the Eastern United States on one of the 12 giant clocks I imagine they have hanging around the walls of call centers, like in a NATO missile command center, or Dr. Strangelove.
“Oh, it says arrive by 9:25 — “
Me: “I know, I know! I live five minutes away, I gotta go!”
“Schedule it anyway?”
“Yes, YES, BYE, THANK YOU.”
Now, I basically passed out twice yesterday and haven’t eaten in days, so was I really going to get behind the wheel of a large automobile?
Yes. Yes, I was.
After white-knuckling the wheel and slapping myself a few times, I dragged my limp corpse up to the check-in desk pretty darn close to 9:40, where no one wanted to touch my ID (“We’ll get it next time”) or my pen (“Yeah, just… Just set it there. Thanks.”)
Eventually I got to see Brittany who said I didn’t have a fever, my blood pressure was pretty good (for me, anyway), one ear has some fluid in it (? I have questions) and yes, my lungs are indeed crackly when I breath out.
The COVID/flu/RSV test results will come back in about 24 hours. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass.
Oh, and we called in an inhaler to your pharmacy.
Okay, well, I’ve always wanted to use an inhaler. People on TV always seem to be using an inhaler. All that pumping and gasping — very sexy stuff.
So the last thing I read on the instructions as I prepare the inhaler for its first use is, “For the love of God, don’t get the metal cylinder wet” or words to that effect.
Shake inhaler and pump it away from your face to prime.
No problem. I got this.
I give the inhaler a good, strong shake, whereupon the metal cylinder goes sailing out of the plastic inhaler and straight into the kitchen sink where it lands in a cereal bowl full of water.
I fish the metal cylinder out of the water, pat it dry with a dish towel, and give it another shot.
It turns out that it’s amazingly difficult to time the pressing of a button to an inhalation of breath, but I’m proud to announce that my tongue can breathe fine now because that’s the only thing that got a dose of medicine.
In four hours, I can try again.
Love it!! LOL..." give the inhaler a good, strong shake, whereupon the metal cylinder goes sailing out of the plastic inhaler and straight into the kitchen sink where it lands in a cereal bowl full of water."
I hope you are feeling better. My husband took Mucinex for an insane amount of time--like months--and when he went off it he went thru a kind of withdrawal involving soaking night sweats. I'm always suspicious of medicine that subverts the body's natural defenses (phlegm) but I'm not sure he could've lived without the stuff. He, too, now has an inhaler.