sore throat

I have a sore throat. It all started a couple days ago when it hurt on the left side of my throat when I swallowed. Then last night and this morning it hurt so bad that I couldn't sleep. So I got up and called my Mommy like any self respecting 21 year old does and tried to get her to help me find a doctor to go to. Well my stupid insurance has a phone number you can call and give your symptoms too and they are supposed to tell you if you need to go see a doctor or not. So I called but their office was closed, so then I just tried to have them help me find a doctor to go to, but they were still closed. I was almost in tears. I had to resort to the phone book trying to find a walk-in clinic in Bellingham to go to. The only one I found was way the hell out on Northwest and didn't accept my brand of insurance. I went anyway. I was pretty convinced that I had strep because it hurt like all hell just to swallow. I waited in the little room for 2o minutes for the doctor, who was not so nice and without even looking in my throat told me that he would "bet a nickel it's not strep". So he ran a strep test even though I'm sure he didn't want to, then looked in my ears and told me to stop using q-tips that I have an ear wax problem in my right ear, but the left is fine, and told me to follow my grandparents instructions of nothing smaller than my elbow in my ear. Thanks, I had never heard that before. Then he felt all along my neck lymph nodes and told me they were "swollen, but nothing impressive". He told me to take ibuprofen and drink tea with lemon and honey. He was in and out in five minutes and after the test came back I really didn't have strep. This is easily the third time I've been to the doctor in my life thinking that I had strep and didn't. I might be a baby who can't handle pain. Then I had to go pay. Now this was the first time that I had been to the doctor and couldn't use my insurance and just had to pay it, and for a whole lot of waiting and kind of a cold doctor I paid 120 bucks! That's insane. Universal health care keeps looking better and better.