My day: the walk-in clinic

I awoke feeling lousy and weak after a very long, very bad night, so I kept to my word and in the early afternoon headed to a local urgent-care clinic.

It was closed, as in kaput, a harbinger of the joy the rest of the afternoon would bring.

My next stop was a slightly more distant urgent-care clinic, which was still in business and open until 8:00 p.m. Excellent.

Unfortunately, it had a two- to two-and-a-half-hour wait. I had a book, though, so I was set. I also had my non-stop nausea and weakness for company, which was nice in a it's-good-to-have-something-you-can-count-on way.

The first sign that I was worse than I'd hoped came when they took my vitals. After I'd waited only an hour, they called me inside, and my hopes rose. They took my pulse and blood pressure, then sent me back to the waiting room. Such teases. My pulse, which is normally 64 to 68, was 95. My blood pressure, which was most recently 92 over 68, was 107 over 78. The bp news wasn't great, but the pulse reading was definitely bad.

I now had their attention, and in fact in under an hour later I was talking with a doctor. He seemed smart and attentive and knowledgeable, and I quite liked him.

I didn't, however, like his statement that I was quite dehyrdated, but I couldn't argue with it, particularly given my pulse. So, after I provided a stool sample--always a fun part of any day--and took an anti-nausea pill he provided, they stuck in an IV and hooked me up to a liter of fluid.

An hour later--way longer than they had expected but not a surprise given how dehydrated I was--the fluid had drained into me, the anti-nausea medicine had taken hold, I'd read a fair amount, and I was up to feeling like a truck had side-swiped me--which was a big improvement from my previous state, in which the truck was driving back and forth over my gut.

He gave me two prescriptions--one for a flash two strong doses of Cipro, the other for more anti-nausea medicine, which I am to take as I need it--and told me to pick up some probiotic pills as well. I drove to the pharmacy, made the purchases, and am now very glad to be home.

In a beautiful bit of irony, the anti-nausea medicine, which is candy-flavored, predictably causes me to gag while I wait for it to dissolve under my tongue. Once it does, though, it helps.

I am to eat only clear liquids today, with maybe some toast and soup for the Cipro. The next two to three days, I am to stick to the BRAT (Bananas Rice Apple[sauce] Toast) diet. That's all fine, as long as I heal quickly, but I have to attend parties Wednesday and Thursday nights, and Friday morning, I fly to Vegas.

All I can say is this: Heal, body, heal!