"Jesus, Woman," David said, "go to the doctor."
I hemmed and hawed a couple more days until I finally couldn't take it anymore and went to urgent care where the doc suggested I had a bacterial sinus infection and would require antibiotics. "Do I have to?" I protested. I've been on so many in my lifetime I think I'm immune.
"Well, it could go away on it's own," she said, "but the risk of an untreated bacterial sinus infection is meningitis. I flashed on my grandmother and her quivering hand. "Will it help with the pain?"
"Within a few days you should be feeling mostly better."
A few days later came and went. I felt better. But not mostly. A few days later I felt worsely. But again, I figured I'd let it go. And go. And go... As someone accustomed to living with a fair amount of physical pain, I never know what's coming from where. Plus, wisdom from a Jewish Buddhist reminds me that not every physical sensation is a sign of terminal illness, and thus I soldier on.
After two weeks of intermittent plugged ears, head and neck pain, nausea, and crushing fatigue, I was running out of excuses. Could I be depressed? I wondered. Could that be causing all this? I Netied. I Nelimeded. I flushed with ACV and garlic. I did my alternate nostril breathing. Stood on my head. Avoided standing on my head. Cried. Avoided crying.
A round of Flonase and a packet of Mucanex D left me hopeful, but unhealed.
In the meantime, my doctor brother suggested I go to an ENT. By then I had diagnosed myself with Barotrauma, a common illness among divers and pilots having to do with changes in barometric pressure, much less common on land. When I insisted to my brother though, that my symptoms mimicked them exactly, Ben conceded that perhaps I could have caused barotrauma by overusing the Neti Pot.
They laughed at this one at the clinics. "You have what?" they'd say, rubbing their eyes in frustration, "what are the symptoms?"
"Unbearable pain."
"That's more like it. Sit down. We'll call you when it's your turn." To pass the time, they gave me a long blue plastic bag attached to a face mask when I told them I thought I was going to throw up; I thought it was supposed to be used to breathe into if you felt nauseous, which I tested in the lobby. I was abruptly told I was confusing it with something else and hadn't I ever heard of a barf bag?
Friday afternoon I finally gave up and headed to the ER just so I could be seen somewhere and do something about the pain. After the requisite CT scan, IV drip of Benadryl, etc, blood tests, we were released around eleven pm. The tests revealed nothing and I was given something for pain and an RX for Prednisone. In my pleasantly doped up state, I understood that the Prednisone was to reduce the swelling in my sinuses. I missed the part about how it would also reduce me to my last nerve.
I slept like a baby and woke up feeling better than I had in a while. Encouraged, we quickly filled the RX and I popped my Preds, excited to be getting back to normal. When the pain roared in around midday, I ignored it. Instead I tidied up and then went back to bed. What happened next is not good. I'd rather not even go into the details. Granted it's the kind of "not good" that will eventually, given enough time and reprieve, be funny. But not today. Let's just say I'm lucky my boyfriend is speaking to me.
"I know you don't feel well" he sighed after trying to get me to smile for 8 hours, "it doesn't mean you can be mean to me all night long." By then he was tired of my pain. Nothing he could do or say got through to me. I turned away from him on the couch. "Fine," I said and headed upstairs. It didn't matter that he took me to dinner. It didn't matter that he sat with me in the ER for ten hours. It only mattered that he refused to watch a movie with me and cuddle, even though it was going on midnight. Why didn't he know that was a federal offense?
A little later I came back down and googled "prednisone and irritability." Bingo. The next day several people, both on and offline will agree that it can make you nuts. "Roid Rage," is apparently what it's called.
"What are you doing on your computer so late?" Too-Cute-Face called over from the couch as I hunched over the dim glow, where my computer faithfully burned, an everlasting candle.
"Googling," I said and headed back up. I ignored the little voice saying come with me. I don't want to be alone.
...
Your Roid Rage story?
Your ER story?
What happens in Part Two?
(PART TWO coming soon! : Rox goes to the ENT...
Trailer: "I'll do whatever you say. But, please, no prednisone!" )
