OK, this time I'm NOT FAKING

[ellenkushner]

The right side of my throat is incredibly sore every time I swallow.  Thermometer says I don't have a fever - but what does it know? We only have this incredibly old plastic electric one I've never understood how to use.  It could be giving me temperature in Buenos Aires.  And one final proper glass-and-mercury one - out of what used to be quite a collection, but they break, you know, when you drop them on the tiled bathroom floor as one does....and then what?  You can't even buy them new anymore, can you?  I sway between wanting to use it because at least I know it works (and how) and wanting to leave it in its little blue plastic flimsy holder lest it suffer the fate of its fellow last year, whose holder still sits mute and solitary, a reminder of . . . what? Not to drop this one?  The possibility that really it's off on a bookshelf somewhere and will return, like Peter Pan, if I just keep the holder open?

Comments

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

You can get non-mercury filled glass ones. Saw some at the pharmacy two days ago. The liquid in thhem is red.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I can live with that!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Take care of yourself, and I hope the sore throat goes away very soon.

thermometers

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

You can still buy the old-fashioned ones, though they no longer contain mercury I think. We got one because we gave up on the electronic ones :)

oog at sore throat, and I hope you have the mildest plague form possible.

Re: thermometers

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sad to think that when you break them the little silver balls don't skitter about engagingly....but I can live with that. Didn't see any glass last time I was at CVS - but I will keep looking! Hope you're feeling better, too.

Re: thermometers

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

I could ask elsmi where he found it :)

Hope you're feeling better, too.

I should be in a few weeks to a few months; right now I'm in the pits of drug-withdrawal effects. The drug had to go! But it's not fun.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

My mother would never let us use the glass thermometer except when we were on the sofa. Yet somehow one of us kids managed to break one in the living room and we spent some time pushing the mercury around on the surface of the carpet before mom caught us and made us stop.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes!

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

Bah on this sore throat! Tea for you, and bed, and no singing Sondheim in the shower either!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I'll try to contain myself.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

I know it's desperately hard. Hope you have comfort movies to watch.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Bummer on the sore throat. Hot tea with honey and hope you feel better.
I always found the old mercury ones hard to read, and I am very klutzy. And the hubby is impatient, he kept taking the mercury one out of his mouth to see how it was doing. As a result, I love the new electronic thermometers. I get the more expensive, instant read with Big Numbers.
(Mind you the impatient hubby is impatient, even though it takes less than a minute, he Still takes the thermometer out before it is done to see how it's doing. Bother.)
Hope you can find a reasonable substitute for your mercury one.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yes, hard to read: And therefore the achievement more of a challenge and to be valued! Sigh. Thank you very much.

Sore Throats

[(Anonymous)]

I've had so many of these, I've lost count. Each one was agony and wanted my complete attention. So I gave them tea with cream, soft boiled eggs and rock candy on sticks. Probably didn't help, but made the control freak in me feel better. The good news is that they don't usually bother staying around long enough to bore you. :)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

How not to break the old one: fetch the thermometer out of the medicine cabinet, go back to bed, and take your temperature there. Replace thermometer in case, return to medicine cabinet when you get up for NyQuil. See? Simple. You just have to devise this plan BEFORE you get sick, because it's too hard to figure it out when you ARE.