Thank you, Sir Alexander Fleming

In 1928 Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin as a "fortuitous accident."  In his basement laboratory in London, Fleming noticed that a petri dish of staph bacteria had been left uncovered by accident and that a blue-green mold had formed on the dish.  Wherever the mold was, the staph bacteria had died. Fleming realized that the mold could be used to fight some common and deadly infections. Penicillin was tested and used on a limited scale until a method for mass production was created in June 1945.

Fascinating trivia, isn't it? I looked this up the other day because I wanted to know to whom I owed my utmost gratitude. It is always at the end of an illness that I am amazed at the complexity of the human body, and appreciative for the medication that healed me.

I've been lucky to be pretty healthy all my life. My bouts of illness are minor, but I am at my sickest when I  come down with strep throat, about every 5-8 years. I can clearly recall almost every single time I've gotten strep over the years because the agony is emblazoned on my memory.  Here's a few notable episodes:

• Four days after returning to BYU from our honeymoon and wedding receptions, I was so feverish and sick with strep that I couldn't eat, drink, or talk. After a few days our landlords (Dan's great-aunt and uncle) called a doctor friend, who met us at his office in the middle of the night to give me an antibiotic shot. 
• When I was pregnant with Bailey, I had many complications, but a notable one was a simultaneous kidney infection/strep throat that sent me to the hospital for a few days. The pain of the kidney infection was so much less severe than the pain of my throat, and I was ever so grateful for the IV infusion of antibiotic that quickly quelled the fire.
• Shortly after moving from Arizona to Utah, we were trying to finish off a bathroom downstairs so company could visit for Brandon's baptism in March. I spent all one day laying down vinyl floor and texturing the wall, and somehow thought it was a good idea to entertain several of the kid's friends simultaneously. As the day went on, I felt increasingly achy and unwell and my house was systematically destroyed by 8 and 2 year olds. I clearly remember a bag of fishy crackers dumped out and ground into the stairs to the basement.  Now, my renovation and child care activities that day really aren't relevant because they aren't the reason I got sick, but the sickness was bad enough that the events of the day are cemented in my memory.  
• When Joseph was one month old, we were expecting Dan's sister and family (the Baldwins) to come to visit for Conference weekend. We were excited to have company and had planned lots of great food and fun activities. The day before their arrival my throat started to hurt. Bad. I eventually found my way to the doctor and got my positive strep test. I was so miserable AND nursing a one-month- old baby AND didn't want to get our visitors sick. So I spent the entire Conference weekend in bed, feverish and miserable, while everyone else visited downstairs.

And that brings me to last week. Conference weekend again! I was busy getting everything ready and thought that was why I was feeling run down. I made lots of delicious food which I never really ate. By Sunday night I knew I was getting sick, but assumed it was the cold virus the kids had fought while we were in Europe. Their illness had started with a sore throat and moved to a cold. So, as I vacillated between chills and fever all Sunday night and all day Monday, I kept waiting for the sore throat to dissipate and the cold symptoms to set in. Instead, my throat grew more sore and the lymph nodes under my jaw were larger than golf balls and so painful I couldn't move my neck.

Like an idiot martyr mother, I did my best to keep going. I got up at 4:40 a.m. Monday and helped everyone get breakfast and lunches packed and off to seminary or school. To avoid passing my germs, I wore surgical gloves while I made the food. I did the same thing on Tuesday, but looking at or smelling the food was making me extremely nauseous. Finally, Tuesday afternoon I was picking up Joseph from school and running him to piano when I grew a brain and realized that this was more than a cold. I squeaked out a call to the doctor and arranged a strep test. Twenty minutes later I had my answer and an antibiotic called in to the pharmacy. But I couldn't bring myself to stand in line at the pharmacy - I was that sick. I texted Dan and told him to pick it up and went home.

But Dan didn't really know how sick I was, and he was delayed when his boss asked him a question . . . which led to an hour long discussion. By 7 p.m. I was a puddle of mess on the hardwoods in the the kitchen, crying painful and feverish tears. The kids had disappeared upstairs doing homework or reading, and I couldn't summon the energy to go get them or the voice to call them down to help. Dan happened to call on the way to Fred Meyer, and I sobbed into the phone enough for him to know he needed to hurry.

And he did hurry. And then, with that blessed antibiotic, the healing began. Isn't amazing how fast a mold-derived miracle drug can obliterate the bacteria that threaten us? Within a few hours I could tell the tide had turned. It took a few more days to get back to a weakened state of normal, but at least I was moving in the healthy direction. Dan felt so bad once he realized how sick I was that he insisted I do nothing but lay on the couch the next day while he handled everything. Which is a tiny bit ironic, because by then I felt a LOT better than I had the day before. The kids also were very kind and took good care of me, but I felt so bad about laying on the couch like a lump instead of helping them with all their various things. I am grateful that I'm the only one in my family who seems susceptible to strep.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you Alexander Fleming, and every other researcher who has worked to disocver medical advancements which have saved lives and saved misery!