Well to be fair there's an ambiguity about locker rooms and different perspectives of how people react to them. Plenty of room for discussion there. But only a swab test could tell if your sore throat was an STD or not.
I'm more puzzled as to why you had to wait for so long before getting a test. Is Albuquerqe a small town? It must have been very worrying having to deal with the delay.
Here in London, with out metropolitan-scale socialised medicine there are several walk-in STD clinics. You might have to wait an hour or two but you'll get tested that day, you can opt to have the results txt'd to you or call back for the diagnosis in a few days, and any medication dispensed is free. I think they even have a professional tracing service if you can't handle informing your contacts yourself. It's all highly confidential and records are kept separately from the rest of the health service. You don't even have to give your true name and address, though they encourage you to do so so they can follow-up if necessary.
Anyway, what happened?
I first tried to get an appointment with my primary care physician, but they didn't have any appointments available for > one month, which is typical of them. At a public STD clinic, they wouldn't take a swab, the reason being that I was insured and their budget had been cut. At the hospital emergency room, after I had waited about five hours (typical) they did a culture for straph, but it came back negative so the physician said that it was viral and would go away by itself, but it didn't. So, I went to a private laboratory and found that they use different culture media for different suspected pathogens. The nurse took two swabs: one for gono and the other for chlam. The gono came back negative, but because of lab errors, the chlam had to be repeated twice, for a total of three tries!! It (finally) came back negative. Next I went to an urgent care place and was given a prescription for an antibiotic because it could have been an infection which was not detected. That was Monday; this is Friday, and my throat is still sore.
Albuquerque has a population of about 500,000, excluding suburban areas. However, seeing a doctor here can be very difficult. I plan to go back to the same urgent care place tomorrow if I still have the problem, and in the VERY near future change medical care providers to one which can provide prompt service in case it is required. As it stands now, I haven't felt well for > one month!! I'm not totally incapacitated, but it has been a problem.
This is supposed to be a prosperous country, but this state has almost the lowest per capita income in the entire U.S. and the high school drop out rate is almost 50%!! Also, there is a physician shortage here. Emergency rooms are full because patients go there when they cannot get an appointment to see a doctor. The University of New Mexico hospital recently greatly expanded to become a cancer center; they added many cancer specialists by luring them from other parts of the country. However, they did nothing to expand their ability to see more patients with ordinary problems, which is why getting an appointment promptly is impossible and why they send patients to emergency where they commonly have to wait for half a day or even longer. A woman told me about a friend of hers who was bitten by her cat. She went to University of New Mexico emergency and was told to return in 12 hours because they were too busy to see her. By the time she returned, she had a serious infection and had to be put on an IV delivered antibiotic.
I expect to get through this, but meanwhile, because if it, I am experiencing tension-related cardiac symptoms which I've had before when I've been under tension, so I'm not worried about that. But it is startling to have one's heart skip a beat followed by what feels almost like a sledge hammer blow.
Obviously this has been very frustrating, annoying, worrying, etc. etc. Probably I'll go back to living like a monk.
