I think Mother Nature has an unwritten rule that you must have one sinus
episode every spring — no exceptions!
What’s interesting is I don’t recall having sinus problems growing
up. That’s probably because the house we grew up in didn’t have
air conditioning. We’d never heard of insulation, and there were
cracks in the walls of the old house big enough to toss a puppy through.
There was plenty of pollen, but we weren’t cooped up in a controlled
environment day and night so the pollen didn’t seem to affect us.
These days, it’s a different story. I made it through early spring
when the thick yellow layer of pollen on the hood of my truck was deep enough
to grow potatoes. I also made it through the wet period when mushrooms
and mold spores sprang up like kudzu.
In fact, I began to feel a little cocky until last Sunday. Jilda and I were
sitting in the corner of Jean’s on the River Restaurant signing books
on my homegrown book tour, when I sneezed so loudly that it rattled the tea
glass on our table.
Jilda spoke up in her Wal-Mart PA voice — “CODE YELLOW — CLEAN
UP ON AISLE THREE! YES MARGARET, YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MOP!” “It’s
not nice to make fun of afflicted people,” I sniffed.
I made it through the event and promptly went home and took a nap. As I started
drifting off I kept repeating a positive affirmation — “I am
NOT getting sick, I am NOT getting sick.”
I woke up a while later sneezing with my nose running like a broken water
main. Jilda got around and made some homemade vegetable soup, which was remarkable.
It tasted good, but it had little impact on my head, which felt like a big
block of hoop cheese.
I made the decision to put on my PJ’s at 7 p.m. and I knocked back
a big old hit of NyQuil — the sniffy, snotty, sneezy night-time so-I-can-drool-on-my-pillow
medicine.
I tried to read the label for ingredients, but they all sounded like derivatives
of some kind of petrochemical so I gave up.
Jilda said the common names for the ingredients are tequila and Lortab. “REALLY,” I
said with a tongue as thick as a sandwich. “Is that why I can’t
feel my toes?”
I tried to stay up and do some reading but I was having issues with the text.
Jilda leaned over and turned the magazine right side up which made reading
somewhat easier.
When I have these episodes, I’m not sick enough to lay off work. And
usually I’m not sick enough to go to the doctor. My doctor is a buddy
of mine and I don’t want him to think I’m a whiney baby. So I
usually try not to go unless I’ve lost a limb or maybe have blood dripping
out of my ears.
I toughed it out this week, and I’m actually feeling better as I sit
here writing tonight.
As the old country song goes “If you’re ever gonna see a rainbow,
you got to stand a little rain.” I love the rainbow of spring,
but I’ve stood about as much sinus rain as I can stand this year.