According to my doctor, my mysterious illness appears to be an infection of mycoplasma. It’s a bacterial infection that just doesn’t want to go away. I’m on a cool new type of antibiotics, called the Z-Pak, which involves a mere 6 pills over 5 days. I love drug companies!

My throat is feeling better already. By tomorrow, I should be feeling fine. As an opinionated gal, it’s just terrible when talking hurts! (Back when Paul and I were just friends in St. Louis, we went out to dinner the night before I was headed back home to Maryland. I was ill with a cold of some kind and was already losing my voice. But Paul managed to ensnare me in some discussion that I just couldn’t let him win! I argued myself completely hoarse. Then, while on the plane the next day, the changes in air pressure completely screwed up my hearing. So my parents had the pleasure of meeting a deaf-mute child at the airport.)

While at the doctor, I also ran into another delightful improvement in medical technology, namely the instant strep test. Instead of waiting a few days to see whether the culture has grown or not, you get an instant report with 98% accuracy. (They still grow the culture for the negative results, just in case you are one of those 2% missed.) As someone who has gotten strep many, many times, I love it! (The first time I got strep was when I was in third grade or so. I missed the much-anticipated Girl Scout camping trip as a result. I was crushed.)

Oh, and I am looking for some recommendations for voice recognition software. I tried Dragon Naturally Speaking a few years ago, but it was terrible. But I have heard that the technology has gotten much better. Does anyone have any recommendations on software? on hardware? Thanks in advance.