Sore Throat

I went back to my undergraduate institution last weekend to watch this years final home football game, as well as a hockey match. I came back to North Chicago with a sore throat. After spending any amount of time on a college campus, I always fear I have mono. That's right: I worried that I had mononucleosis every time I was sick for four years.

Looking at my throat in the mirror wasn't working, so I grabbed my otolopharyn-o-scope (sp?) and peered inside. I realized that there is something in my throat that I had never thought of before. You know that thing that hangs down in the center of your throat? I had no idea what it was. Was it the epiglottis? That was the only thing I could think of that would be situated back there, but it could not have been, because it was small and insignificant, unlikely to block food from entering the lungs, which is the epiglottis's main responsibility.

So what was that thing?

I became even more perplexed when I discovered that yelling at it made it disconnect from the roof of my mouth after I swallowed. Curiosity drove me to Bates' Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking. That thing is called a Uvula. There was significant redness on my soft palate, but the posterior pillar of my throat seemed splotched, with faintly white pigmentation. Could this be a bacterial infection? Or was it simply mild dehydration presenting itself at the farthest reaches of my throat? Where even my light couldn't clearly illuminate it?

My self-diagnoses are still short of perfect. But they are getting better.