A few nights ago, my allergies kicked into Super Nova
action, causing my sinuses to become Super Inflamed and Agitated, joined by
their good friends, Sore Throat and Head
Pressure. Both nostrils are completely
swollen shut and only peek open to let a flood of mucus come rushing out of my
nose like Niagara Falls and then they slam shut again. Major red itchy eyes and the sweet cough and
pressure join in, and make my eyes feel like they are going to burst out of my
face and implant themselves in the drywall across from where I am sitting. Yeah, that’s the stuff.
Two nights ago I woke up and thought “How awesome, my nose
was running like a purse snatcher in my sleep”.
So I staggered out of bed and went to the bathroom, flipping on the
closet light as I passed to prevent a midnight trip to the ER. I put the lid down on the toilet, plopped
myself down and began unrolling paper to blow my nose. It was pretty dark in the bathroom, and I am
a zombie at night, so I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until I was thumping
my way back to bed when I happened to glance in the mirror next to the closet
door and gasped so hard I swallowed some of my hair, gag. My nose wasn’t running, it was bleeding. Sweet!
I looked like an extra from Freddy vs. Jason! I had blown my nose so much that I was
probably lucky to have not bled to death!
Okay, so that was unpleasant to behold and I haven’t had a
nose bleed since I gave up on Flonase many years ago, so it was just mostly inconvenient
and unsettling, not really a huge deal.
I washed my face and hands and the bleeding stopped on its own. I’m sure it helped that I stopped trying to
leach myself to death by blowing my nose unmercifully. I went back to bed and there were no more
bleeds.
Fast forward to today.
Sinuses have been more than dissatisfactory over the last two days, to
put it mildly. Irritated, swollen, burning
and just plain miserable. I have
sniffled and blown my nose so much I’m positive my co-workers, family and any
complete strangers I have come into contact with in the last week, wish me
serious harm.
So…. Here comes the fun part where my Super Helpie Helperson
Husband comes to my rescue. He’s special
like that. I’m sitting in bed this
evening and I lean over to him and say “Mark, could you be a dear and go to the
kitchen and get me a mixing bowl to hold under my nose while I sleep”. Well, I am OF COURSE being facetious, duh,
but my dear spouse says “Okay”.
Sigh. So after assuring him that
I was not serious, he says in his super helpie way “Hey, why don’t you try some
of this stuff I use to unclog my sinuses”?
I see Mark use this nose spray
all the time so I know he’s not giving me something he wouldn’t use, and after
all, it’s been a pretty terrible sinus week so what the heck do I have to lose,
right? WRONG. I’m pretty stinking sure that Mark must have
bought this stuff from some black market stall in Thailand from the guy who
wouldn’t sell Gizmo to Billy Peltzer’s dad, because when I squirted a tiny bit
of this mystery substance up my unsuspecting clogged nostril,
I was certain that
it actually contained battery acid. I
immediately dropped the bottle back into my darling husband’s hand and declined
to spray the second nostril. By this
time I was seeing stars, but I thought surely this is only a temporary burning
and it will subside soon and then I’ll be feeling aces in no time. So I sat on the bed with tears streaming down
my face, waiting as patiently as I possibly could for the pain to subside. After about two minutes I burst out “OH MY
DEAR BABY JESUS, WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THAT STUFF? Bleach? Ammonia?
Ground up Habanero seeds and Hydrochloric Acid???? What’s the freaking VOC count of that
stuff??? Is it legal in the US? Is it secret military experimental waste? What black market stall in hell did you get
that stuff from?????”
Mark looked at me like I was sprouting a tiny extra arm from
my forehead and said “Is it burning? It
doesn’t burn me”. Oh well that’s just
freaking super.
“NO DEAR, I’M JUST BEING DRAMATIC! I DON’T FEEL LIKE MY NOSE IS MELTING OFF MY
FACE! MY LIPS ARE NOT NUMB! I ALWAYS SEE STARS SWIRLING IN FRONT OF MY
EYES AT BED TIME AND THESE TEARS? THEY
ARE TEARS OF UTTER JOY THAT I CAN BREATHE THROUGH ONE SIDE OF MY NOSE! I JUST DON’T FREAKING WANT TO NOW!!!! BECAUSE BREATHING FEELS LIKE SOMEONE PUMPED
GASOLINE UP THERE AND LIT A BARBEQUE LIGHTER UNDER IT! OF COURSE IT’S BURNING!!!!”
I leapt out of bed and ran to the kitchen medicine cabinet
where I dug around frantically for my Neti Pot, in hopes I could rinse this
inferno out of my sinus cavity. I
finally found it buried behind a ton of SINUS and ALLERGY MEDICINE. I ran the water until it got hot and filled the
pot and added the salt solution as quickly as I could with my shaky hands, and
began to rinse the side that I didn’t use the spray in first. It didn’t help. In fact, the salt seemed to give the lava
spray a little boost of super unnecessary energy. I dumped the water out and filled it with
plain water, but in my tear soaked, addlebrained hurry I turned the water all
the way to the hot side and filled it. I’m
not even going to go into what I said when I poured scalding hot water into my
nostril, where the flames of hell could not even hope to compete, but I’m sure
somewhere in Rome, a cloister of nuns fainted.
I dumped that water out and refilled with warm water. This time I began on the side that I didn’t
spray. Why? That is a very good question, because that
decision led to the remnants of the death spray trickling into the so far,
spray free nostril and if you’ve ever used a Neti Pot, you know that some of
the water trickles out of your mouth as well…..
yeah. So now, my entire face and
throat has all the heat and power of Mount Vesuvius flowing through it. I continued to rinse my nose and mouth with
warm water for another 15 minutes.
Finally, I had gotten enough of the vile chemical out of my nose that I
was somewhat calm. I blew my nose for
another 5 minutes which, surprise surprise, caused another nose bleed. I was actually
very surprised that melted and blackened bits of my brain didn’t come out, so I
was okay with the nose bleed at this point.
Happy Happy, Joy Joy.
I made it back to the bedroom and crawled weakly into bed,
only to roll over and see my darling helpful spouse, sleeping like a peaceful
baby, next to my tear stained and bloody face.
Then he suddenly jumped out of bed and said he was leaving
forever, he wasn’t taking any of his stuff, tools, motorcycle, truck,
nothing. He also said no one should
ever go looking for his body, I mean him, and to never ever dig up the rose garden in
the backyard. Seriously. That’s exactly what he said. Oh, but you can bet he took that damn nose
spray with him.
