ALLY:

Oh my god. My throat was freaking killing me. It felt like Sweeney Todd was stuck in my throat and was trying to break his way out with his razor. Plus, I was coughing so much that it made it hard to sleep at night without coughing (I had tried Nyquil and Dayquil and neither worked), I was having trouble swallowing and I lost my appetite in the midst of it all, my nose was running and I sounded like a cross between Marge on The Simpsons and Darth Vader from Star Wars (if he was a meth addict or drunk on alcohol), I was freezing despite being under three wool blankets and wearing my bathrobe, my abdomen was cramping and my stomach was hurting, plus I had thrown up five times in the past twelve hours. To paraphrase, I was sick.

Needless to say, I had had the flu before. This definitely wasn't the first time I was sick. I went to the bathroom to throw up again. I saw my roommate and best friend of seventeen years and since I was five years old, Trish De La Rosa walk out.

I croaked,

"Sorry I woke you up, Trish."

There was nothing Trish hated more than being woken up from a dead sleep, or sleep of any kind. Her, me and her boyfriend Jace Dillon had been living together for three years now and I was very well aware of this. But in this circumstance, she seemed more concerned with me instead of how I just unintentionally woke her up.

"Ally, are you OK?"

I said hoarsely,

"No. I feel awful."

She put on a flu mask and said to me,

"Let me see your throat."

"Son of a bitch! Your tonsils are so red and they have little white dots on them."

I picked up my hand mirror on the side of the bathroom sink. Trish was right. I did have really big tonsils. I saw her pick the digital thermometer from the cabinet and she stuck it under my tongue.

"Under your tongue,"

she said to me in a very motherly way. The thermometer beeped and she pulled it out from my mouth. She looked like she was about to pass out.

"Holy shit!"

I asked hoarsely,

"What is it?"

And I went into a coughing fit. A lot of mucus was trapped in my lungs.

"Ally, you have a fever of one hundred and three point nine."

Now I felt the need to throw up. I retched for the seventh time and I saw some blood in my vomit. Trish was cringing as she was looking at my bloody vomiting. I went into yet another thick coughing fit.

"Ally, you need to see a doctor. You have a very bad cough, I saw fucking blood in your vomit, your fever is very high and I've seen smaller tonsils on Grey's Anatomy. You have influenza in every sense of the disease."

Trish was right. I did need to see my doctor. But sadly, my doctor, Doctor Elaine Bryant, resigned and relocated back to her home in Trenton, New Jersey, because her father, who lived out of state, was sick with lung cancer and she needed to be closer to him.

"I called last night. I have an appointment at nine AM today."

I had been feeling like this for the last two days. It was annoying as hell. I laid on the couch and Trish walked out.

"Ally, do you need Jace or I to get you something?"

I said,

"Some water would be good, Trish."

Jace asked me,

"You OK, Ally?"

I said hoarsely,

"No. I feel like shit."

Trish told her boyfriend,

"Her tonsils are huge. The good thing is, she's going to the doctor today, like she should."

I went into a coughing fit and I ran to the bathroom to throw up for the eighth time.

"I see her point,"

I heard Jace say to his girlfriend.

"Ally, listen, I'm going to take Trish to work, do you want a ride to South Hospital too?"

I went into a coughing fit again and I said hoarsely,

"Sure, Jace. Thanks."

I took off my bathrobe and layered a hoodie with fur inside it over my pajamas and grabbed, as well as wooly socks and uggs boots.

"You called your work to tell them you're sick, right, Ally?"

Trish asked me.

I croaked hoarsely,

"Yeah."

I went into another coughing fit. I retched in the toilet again. My career was that I was a singer-songwriter, a model, a fashion, makeup and perfume entreprenuer and I worked at Tiffany part-time four days a week, while Trish was a high-grade medical marijuana dealer and my manager and Jace owned his indoor skatepark. The three of us headed out and he dropped me off first. I said,

"Thanks, Jace."

He said,

"No problem, Ally. I hope you get better."

Trish said to me,

"Yeah, mamacita. Feel better."

Trish was hispanic, and she liked to call me Mamacita sometimes.

I smiled at my best friend and her boyfriend.

"Thanks you guys."

I couldn't stop coughing. I got into the waiting room and sat down, wrapping myself in my blanket, like a shawl. A handsome male doctor, who looked about my age, perhaps a year or two older, walked out. He had short blonde hair that looked like an edgier version of the Justin Bieber combover, he was very muscular and he happened to look good in a doctor's uniform.

"Dawson, Allison Willow?"

He asked.

I croaked,

"That's me,"

and I went into a coughing fit and I spit some phlegm into the wastebasket.