Which are you going to take … the red pill or the blue
pill?
During my recent hiatus from writing I have mostly been
under the weather. Under the pollen specifically. All the good nutrition and
exercise in the world can only do so much when the daily report looks like
this:
I have been miserable. And I am ticked off that I have
been miserable. I don’t have time to be miserable. I’m losing track, but I
think it’s been five weeks I’ve been officially sick.
That blue pill has got to be the prettiest antibiotic
ever invented. Yes, that’s an actual picture of my actual medication on my
actual bathroom counter.
I have been down this path before. The path of chronic
sinus infections.
It doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? It’s just a
sinus infection. That’s like a bad cold, right?
It starts with a headache, maybe of migraine-like
intensity. (Just take some pain meds … it’ll be fine …) Then you start draining
like nobody’s business, and your voice starts to sound like Neil Diamond. Which
would be great if you were Neil Diamond, but not so much for a girl who’s an alto/occasional
soprano.
If you’re lucky you catch it before it turns into
bronchitis. And heaven forbid you wind up in front of the nurse practitioner at
the clinic at the drugstore. Maybe it’s the weekend. Or maybe you’ve managed to
hit the one day all your doctors are out of the office. Overall the drugstore
clinic is awesome. But they like to cite some article that says one should be
in complete misery for 10-14 days before whipping out the antibiotics. Hearing
your history, though, they reluctantly write the script at day eight. They even
encourage you not to fill it for a few more days.
Thanks,
I feel like an oxycontin addict now.
I’m on a full array of allergy meds, decongestants, and
shots. Full time. Year round. I receive the daily pollen report by email and
act accordingly. I watch what I eat and I exercise regularly. I do a sinus
rinse every morning.
Sometime the bugs in my head decide to get out of control
and throw a big party.
Sue me.
When I had sinus surgery thirteen years ago, I couldn’t
go more than two weeks off antibiotics before the excruciating
feels-like-someone-is-driving-a-spike-through-my-cheek headache would return.
Prior to that, twenty-one days of Tequin held me for a year-and-a-half. That
was a really good year-and-a-half. No crazy debilitating headaches. No constant
upset stomach from the drainage and meds. No daily struggle just to function,
put on a happy face, and pretend nothing is wrong.
But then the CAT scan showed a golf ball sized cyst
inside my right cheek. So Roto-Rooter surgery it was.
I don’t particularly enjoy antibiotics. Having been on a
lot of antibiotics in my life, and having worked a lot with prebiotics in my
Corporate America career, I am all over the digestive health thing. I have
learned to love yogurt. At times I take a probiotic pill. I don’t request meds
lightly. I just know when it’s time. The feeling in my head changes. And if I
ignore it, I stay miserable, and I increase the likelihood I’ll need surgery
again at some point.
My antibiotic frequency is down to about twice a year
now. My most recent CAT scan showed nothing but mild swelling. No big deal. The
weather pattern this year, though, has resulted in a phenomenon known as ...
Pollen Vortex 2014!
All the
pollen, all at once.
So with a course of prednisone behind me (aaaahhhh,
steroids, fun) … and as I approach my twenty-fourth and hopefully final day of
antibiotics … a house directly on the beach in Florida seems like a really
great idea …
