Self-Diagnosis at Its Worst

As a follow-up to the post regarding our new roof, I thought I would share a story:

The first day that Lance tore off the old roof, I was climbing up and over the pile of rubbish in our front yard when, well-shod as I was, my heel was pierced by a 22 year-old roofing nail. It went ALL the way into my heel through my flip-flop-- about 3/4 of an inch into my foot.I quickly pulled it out and was surprised at how little it hurt and how quickly it healed. Everyone I spoke to cautioned that I should immediately get a tetanus shot since I had no recollection of when I received one last. I hate going to doctors and never, ever go if I can avoid it. But just to be on the safe side, I did a bit of light reading on tetanus (big mistake).

This is some of what I learned: Symptoms of tetanus manifest themselves in 5-14 days and include: Muscle tightness, difficulty swallowing, headaches, and most importantly- tightness of the jaw. As a disease, it is fatal in about 50- 60% of the cases.

Well, wouldn't you know it that my back and neck start to feel tight and five days after the incident of the nail, I wake up in the middle of the night with a massive headache and difficulty swallowing. I was scared but forced my self to go back to sleep. A few hours later, I awake with my jaw being ON FIRE!! I couldn't even open it all the way.

Okay-- so what would you do here? Seeing as how this is a FATAL disease, I wake up Lance and drop the kids off at my friend's house (did I mention it was 3 am?) and off to the E.R. we go.

There is nothing like walking into the ER and declaring that you have a disease that was all but cured an entire century ago. A very smug doctor said after looking into my ears and throat, "I doubt you have tetanus. You probably just slept on your back funny." (Naturally, that would explain the lockjaw and difficulty swallowing!) Well, of course at that moment, I was secretly hoping that I actually DID have tetanus just to prove Dr. McSmuggy wrong!

Epilogue: It has been several weeks since my embarrassing trip to the ER. Turns our McSmuggy was right-- I strained a muscle in my neck.

Lesson Learned: DO NOT USE THE INTERNET TO RESEARCH A DISEASE YOU FEAR YOU HAVE. It will inevitably convince you that you do,in fact, have typhoid, rabies, tuberculosis, etc...

I REALLY owe one to Lance for being so patient with me in the ER and for Brittany for taking my kids in at 3 am.