“It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‘don’t fuss, dear; get on with it’.”
― Audrey Hepburn
This is a story about stupid people.
Well not people in general. Let’s say hypothetically we are talking about me.
Because of my childhood baggage and yackety-yak, I’ve made it to my life goal to become the perfect people pleaser, which is ironic, since people seldom did anything nice to me. I’ve should have opted for a career as a geisha. Maybe there’s still time. Anyway, you know you graduated from people pleasing school when you get sick, REALLY SICK, and avoid going to the hospital, not because of fear, but to avoid being an inconvenience to others.
I woke up on Thursday at 6 with 39 °C fever and a sore throat. I called in sick and checked opening hours of my physician. He wouldn’t be in until 4 pm and I was glad because I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I went back to bed hoping sleep would help, however it soon became clear I wasn’t going to get much sleep very soon. My ears started hurting and my face felt as if someone had stepped on it. I took an ibuprofen, then three more but it wasn’t getting any better. My muscles started cramping and it got to the point I couldn’t take it anymore, so I did the impossible: I asked a friend for advice, he offered me to call the hospital for me and I accepted – I wasn’t able to talk or think clearly anymore.
After a number of calls, they told him I should get to the doctor before the hospital and the doctor’s assistant told him to come by around 5. By the time I got there – yes, I let him pick me up and I’m still not sure how I managed to get down the stairs – I was feeling dizzy and nauseous and couldn’t believe they were taking so long to see me. When the doctor finally arrived, he told me I should have gone to the hospital right away.
I’m going to let that sink in for a moment, so you can feel what I felt.
Luckily, he said it wasn’t necessary to go to the hospital anymore since the antibiotics would work soon. I got home with a ton of medication which was very painful to swallow. Not an easy task when even water is hard to swallow.
Over the next days, I felt the right side of my throat getting better even so I couldn’t eat or sleep. I was so congested with phlegm I could not spit the stuff out and I couldn’t swallow it either. My breathing started stopping now and then.
Sunday 3 am. It was time to get help. I packed a bag for the hospital with pants a t-shirt, toothbrush, deodorant, a book, some socks, and underwear; I took a shower hoping it would make the situation better, then got back to bed again to rest a little and gather more energy. I wrote a short summary of the situation because I wasn’t able to talk and had no intention of having to explain everything over and over again.
Suddenly I had to cough. The slime came into my throat and got stuck there. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stop coughing and the pain was indescribable. Finally, somehow, it got out – I guess the gods still have plans for me – and I decided to call an ambulance. I was sitting on the bathroom floor, head on the cold bathtub and I was still debating with myself It’s the middle of the night, I don’t want to wake everybody up. This is stupid it’s just a tonsillitis, I can’t go to a hospital for this. Is my pain even strong enough to go there? They probably have more urgent cases… you get the picture… There was also the problem of communication. How was I supposed to talk to them?
A way too long google search brought me to an emergency number for mutes, btw. The number is too long, so I was able to send a text. It took them one hour to get to my place and they were very happy about my notes on the matter. By that time, I was able to breathe again, and I started blaming myself again because of it.
Aromatic deception 