The Anti-Biotic Problem Again, I Swear this Syndrome will end up killing me

Upper respiratory infections are so common now in big cities like New York that the old saw about " It's probably a virus, no anti-biotics for you" is now the accepted wisdom


This blanket refusal to give out antibiotics is justified scientifically on a number of grounds. It has also nearly killed me several times now.

Timing is everything.My worst brushes with the Grim Reaper have always come on not being diagnosed until a Friday ( and then by someone eager to end their business week )and the need for antiobiotic intervention not becoming obvious until late Saturday or Sunday.

I was sick as a dog by Sunday morning and it was obvious I was just getting worse and worse. I did not want to go to the ER because they are such horrible places.

I am often amazed by the nutty communications problems that arise in all these cases. This time, a Nurse Practitioner and another nurse somehow had as my phone number not the landline number I have had for twenty years, but the number of a back up cell phone I had bought last November while I was moving house. Unbelievable! Another "Murphy's Law" thing ( "If anything can go wrong, it WILL go wrong.")

I have had some antibiotics and sleep now and the change is of course spectacular. But I am very, VERY tired.