Cold Blues
So I'm sitting in the kitchen Friday night watching SNG make some chicken and sirloin stir-fry with about 1/4 cup of cayenne pepper and I start sneezing-- and sneezing, and sneezing. At first we thought it was the pepper in the air, but after dinner I was still sniffly and then my throat started to hurt and by bedtime I was full-out sick with a cold. Or maybe allergies, I can never tell the difference.
I don't get sick very often. I probably get food poisoning more than I get flu & colds combined. Part of the thrill of business travel is the uncertainty of restaurant cleanliness standards-- Salmonella Roulette! Anyway, I don't get sick very often, but when I do, it lingers for weeks. Good timing. I've got 5 straight weeks of travel, and if you've ever flown with a headcold you know it's an experience in pain like no other.
This is definitely some kind of avian-bird-flu-SARS head cold thing. I felt too bad to workout on Saturday so we just hiked with the dog in the woods out back. We probably walked 2 miles, but Goofch ran about 5 or 6. The woods are full of deer. It's nice to see that he's getting some of his fitness back. This time of year is so nice because it's still green, but there are very few spiders or bugs. It's the Golden Mean of the forest, that balance of the hot and cool forces, when the sky is a rich shade of blue and the squirrels are fat.
Sunday we took the tandem out for the 2nd time in over a year. First time was a couple of weeks ago when we discovered that the left-side gear shift lever was broken and we were perpetually stuck in the granny chainring. It's now been repaired, and I figured riding the tandem meant if I started feeling rotten, I could let SNG take up the slack. It was a good call because I needed to drink about every 10 seconds and on the tandem I can just let go of the handllebars the whole time if I want to. Besides, the view is nice where I sit...
Last night Peace and Fuzzy came over for dinner and a movie. They brought over The Third Man-- an old B&W murder mystery/con film set in post-WWII Vienna. It was written by Graham Greene, who is really good at developing quirky characters that have a certain awkward realism that came through even under the veil of late-40's-movie elegance. The main character was really good at blundering his way through every situation leaving a trail of destruction all the while apparently oblivious to the role he played.
So today I'm back at work after about 4 hours' sleep last night. On the upside? I did get our spanish homework done about around 2:30 this morning. But you know how your nose gets all raw when you have a cold? I've got vaseline slathered all over my nose and lips and it probably looks like boogers but I swear it's vaseline, and I should probably work with my door closed today. Not only for the ick factor, but because when I'm sick, I worry about being Too Much Information Girl. And while you, my cyber-friends, certainly want to hear about clever tricks to drain hard-to-access sinus cavities, I doubt that my coworkers do.
2 comments:
Congratulations, I'm sick too. And speaking of TMI on the sinus-cleaning thing, I once went to an allergist who gave me this recipe:
- 1 quart distilled water
- 2 teaspoons kosher (non-iodized) salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Mix it together, pour a small amount into a separate cup (so you don't contaminate the whole batch), and fill a baby aspirator - you know, the thing you use to suck snot OUT of babies' noses - with your homemade saline solution. Then squirt the whole thing up one nostril. Repeat on the other side.
It's totally disgusting, because the stuff comes out of your mouth, the other side of your nose, and it even makes your ears squeak. But so help me, it REALLY works. I've been doing it 2 or 3 times a day since I got this damn sinus infection, and it's the only thing that's prevented me from looking all vaseline-nosed.
Feel better. :)
Ew, that sounds gross. I might try it tonight. I've got exactly the same symptoms right now. In recent years I've been getting antibiotics for the presumed sinus infection, but it never seemed to do much good, so I'm going with the alergy theory. Not that that helps any, because I don't know what to do about alergies.
I do know about the flying! Ow, that hurt! I went to my dentist right after that trip, and he explained that my stuffy nose, pressure differential, tissues, pain, yada yada. He did say that the flight crews have to deal with that too, and are happy to share their stash of medicines if you find yourself with a stuffy nose.
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