So I spent nearly the entire month of November (2006) very "sick". I thought I had a scratchy throat, then a cold that was going around, then thought I had a scratchy throat again. Finally I realized something was seriously wrong, I started being more aggressive about seeing doctors. We even went to the ER on Tuesday November 28th. After ruling out mono, they thought it was just a severe sore throat, so they sent me home with Lidocaine for gargling and Percocet.

Finally, we saw an ENT on Wednesday November 29th. At that point, I hadn't been able to eat or drink for a couple of days, and Percocet wasn't easing the pain. The ENT quickly diagnosed it as epiglottitis.

We went immediately from the ENT to be admitted into Virginia Mason Medical Center. They moved me into a room on the 16th floor with a fabulous view of Lake Union, the SLU and Cap Hill neighborhoods, and more. I was fairly quickly given an IV with fluids (1 liter/hour!), antibiotics, and morphine.

They checked to make sure the epiglottis wasn't close to blocking my airways. That is responsible for the high mortality rate from adult epiglottitis.

I came back home on Friday night, after two nights in the hospital. Large quantities of Percocet are required to eat soft foods or even sip on liquids. Oddly, liquids move down your throat quickly, so they are harder with epiglottitis. So I've been drinking smoothies- which is fine, except very sweet or acidic drinks are painful.

To put it in perspective, I wasn't at work on Halloween because I was sick. I'm writing this on December 2, so it's been well over 4 weeks.