My Uvula is Enormous and Ramblings

My uvula is enormous, and red, and swollen. I had a fever this morning of 100.3F which came down to 99.9 by the time I was seen at Duke Urgent Care (in hindsight I probably could have gone to student health and been exposed to far fewer sick people, but I'm not used to having that as an option). Thank goodness I had my tonsils out when I was 10 because otherwise I would be so much more miserable, as it is my uvula--which I normally never think about at all--is distractingly large. I have some antibiotics now and a new toothbrush, oh, and a diagnosis of strep throat, so hopefully this will get better.

On the upside, the fever and general misery kept me fairly calm during my exam today. Not sure what effects the fever had on my cognitive abilities, hopefully nothing too deleterious, but we will see. I should probably mention that I have test anxiety. I haven't had a full out panic attack in a few years (the last one was spring 2006) but it can cause some issues. Second guessing myself is a major trigger. It wasn't as big of an issue this test as it was the first one (which I think involved a lot of stress just because it was the first test). I have talked to counselors about it before, but it seems like it would be a good idea to maybe talk to someone again... I will have to email Pam about that, I remember she mentioned something about mental health services in a meeting we had.

In other news, my birthday was yesterday! It was a good long weekend, my husband came up with my dog for all four days (and sadly, exposed himself to strep) so he took the kids out to the various parks in the area while I studied. He really seems to be enamored with this area, and I like it a lot too. Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and even the smaller surrounding towns like Hillsborough, have a lot to offer in terms of museums and parks. Of course in the past month we've had hurricanes, an earthquake, and tornadoes so there are some downsides as well ;-) My husband is coming back up this weekend so we can go out and he can get to know my classmates better.

Can I mention that my classmates are pretty awesome? We're all very dissimilar but as a group the dynamic works really well and we all get along. This year could be so horrible if we had to go through it alone.