I can finally say I know what it’s like when people say they ate the entire pint of ice cream. You see, being lactose intolerant has meant I have never experience the pleasure/pain of devouring an entire container of ice cream. When you’re allergic to something so violently, it kinda loses its appeal. But, give me 3 days of not being able to even swallow water thanks to some grimy hand rat who passed along their strep throat, and ice cream sounds a whole lot more desirable. Not enough to venture down the dairy stairway to hell, but enough to muster the energy and trek to Whole Foods in search of the elusive Cookies and Cream Almond Milk edition. No, not as good as the real thing, but this wasn’t some replacement for me, this was the only option and quite possibly the only thing other than a popsicle that I knew I could successfully swallow.

As a side note, I just need to state what is probably a very common opinion here, but strep throat is the worst and I don’t wish it on anyone. I feel like in years past, I’ve often said I have “strep” when it was just some virus and I got antibiotics for it and my throat hurt yada-yada-yada. This was real strep and real, real awful. I didn’t move from my bed from Thursday noon to Saturday noon. I couldn’t swallow water. It came out of my nose. I couldn’t turn my head. I don’t tend to cry from physical pain (my femininity comes out in emotional pain…inconsolable…scary…don’t break my f*%^ing heart:) Anyways, this illness actually brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t even check instagram, that’s how bad I was feeling. You know it’s bad when I can’t even read my instagram feed! It gets worse. I took a bubble bath. I don’t take baths. I feel vulnerable. Like it’s just asking to be interrupted by some armed intruder and there I am, laying there naked and for the taking. I didn’t care. I heard they are relaxing. I searched the condo for bath salts. Not to snort, to soak. Turning up empty-handed, I got my iphone speaker working, turned on classical music (haunted house edition), lit some candles and got in the tub.I realized it had jets, not into it, and after about 10 minutes of head still pounding I got out. But I overcame my bath aversion. Point is, strep makes you do crazy things and I don’t ever want it again. Apparently, it takes days for medicine to kick in and my 100 fever meant no steroid shot, so I just laid there and whined. WAHH. If someone told me I could gain 10 pounds or get strep, I’d say pack em on me. Actually, no I take that back, 10 is a lot. 5? Sure, I’d gain 5 over getting strep. I also didn’t know that only kids get this. I feel like as a single, childless adult female, I should be immune to kiddie stuff. Have kids, get the joy of kids, get the joy of foot and mouth, and strep and chickenpox. Us single people aren’t giving your kids STD’s. Jenna didn’t touch an elevator button and give Tommy HPV. (Just to be clear, this is an example to support my wild opinion. Jenna doesn’t have HPV.) So Tommy pushing all of the elevator buttons for fun isn’t just annoying people, he’s passing along his little kindercare version of mono. Blah. Still, as of Sunday night…can barely swallow. And unlike the flu, I haven’t lost any noticeable weight. So double BLAH.