what i did on my summer vacation: day nine

ugh. i felt truuly awful when i woke up - my cough reached a stage where it was not only painful to my chest, but i could hear and feel something rattling around in my chest. yuck. we got the fire going early and huddled around it in our jimjams, but i still had chills.

time to see a doctor. i called a medical clinic in fenelon falls, but they weren't seeing new patients. they did give me the numbers of a couple of walk-in clinics in lindsay, though. i called one, and got a machine saying they were only open after-hours. the other, i just got a busy signal, but i felt awful enough that i decided to make the drive anyway.
i forget at what point tg said "your phone keeps saying 'press unlock'" and brought it over to me. for some reason, while sitting untouched on the table, my mobile had started malfunctioning. it was as though an unseen hand was leaning on the "8" and there was no stopping it, and no way to make the phone do anything useful. grrr!
i drove to lindsay, where the busy-signal clinic turned out to be also after-hours only. grrr! so in a state of complete misery, i headed to the hospital emergency room, glad i had the foresight to bring my knitting with me, even though i was having trouble concentrating on it (esp. since i kept fogging up my glasses due to the mask i had to wear - i had almost every symptom listed on the giant "flu alert" posters that greeted me at the hospital doors). three-and-a-half hours later, i emerged with a diagnosis of bacterial chest infection, and a prescription for both anitbiotics (ugh) and an inhaler (double ugh). when i got back to the cottage, our friend cain was arriving for a quick sleepover on his way up to the madawaska, so i let the boys entertain themselves while i sulked indoors with years-old gossip magazines. i couldn't even eat dinner with my upset stomach after taking my pill.
the saving grace: an absolutely stellar performance at scrabble. i took 6 one-point letters and one blank and parlayed them into 77 points by making "neurons" on a triple word, and pluralising someone else's word besides. almost made up for the rest of the horrible, horrible day.