I've taken so many different kinds of medication during the course of the last 11 days that it makes for a nice lineup:

I recognize that there are plenty of people in the world taking more (and nastier) medicine than this on a daily basis, but for me, this was a personal best (or worst). You're looking at 5 different Tylenol branded combinations of acetaminophen, a decongestant, and possibly an antihistamine. These, along with a pallet of tissue were the mainstay until yesterday, when I finally threw in the towel and went to see a doctor.

The remainder of the medicines are the result of the doctors visit, including a prescription for amoxicillin, a nasal steriod spray, a probiotic formula of "friendly flora", and some Advil. Missing from the photograph is the bottle of children's Motrin which served as a stand in for Advil last night.

I have to be in pretty bad shape to see a doctor -- as evidenced by the (new) doctor's comment "You haven't been seen here in a while". Yep, long enough, that my "regular" doctor no long works at the clinic. After that it was a few questions, "breathe in, breathe out" followed by "let's get a chest x-ray". 45 minutes of waiting and 5 minutes of x-ray later, we were looking at no pneumonia, and most likely a sinus infection. So antibiotic (amoxicillin) for the infection, nasal steriod to control the dripping and running, and probiotics because the amoxicillin dosage is high enough to seriously disrupt my digestion. Oddly enough, I've had amoxicillin prescriptions before, and never been encouraged to get a probiotic. I'm a little unsettled by the thought that my GI bacteria are going to be wiped out by the amoxicillin and replaced by a careful mix of "eight of the most well-researched and stable strains of friendly flora". I'm also not crazy about the idea that there are 6 billion probiotic live cells in every dose.

That covers everything except the Advil/Motrin. We got home from the doctor and I went back to work (fortunately it's tough to infect your co-workers when you work remotely). Julie and the girls picked up the prescriptions and we were off. I took my first dose of antibiotic a few hours before dinner. At dinner I was starting to run a fever, so I took a pair of extra strength Tylenol. By the time dinner was over and the kids were in bed, I was in a bad state -- I had a truly pounding headache, and the fever had gone up to 102. So we called the on call number, talked to a nurse, and then to a doctor. This doctor ordered 600mg of ibuprofen to get the fever down. We didn't have any adult ibuprofen, so we ended up substituting children's Motrin for "adult" ibuprofen. Fortunately, that worked like a treat, at least on the headache -- the fever went down some also. I then ingested the second dose of amoxicillin, and things seem to have improved from there.