Side Effect du Jour

Those who guessed “nausea” are awarded five points. All others, thank you for playing.

So, here’s the deal. My sinuses have sucked for pretty much my entire life. Plugged, runny, completely inflamed — name a state of discomfort, and I’m likely to be in it. As health problems go, pretty small and dealable. But now there’s this thing where I keep getting sinus infections, and this one was completely unresponsive to the run-of-the-mill antibiotics. I have a sense that I was much sicker much longer than I had realized. So now, after 10 days of one antibiotic and another 14 days of Nuclear-Strength Killzall, on top of the antihistamines and decongestants and everything else, I’m almost feeling human again (though my eyes were all unhappy today). I can even run, so I’m easing back into that. But the doc says I gotta do something about this, which may be a combination of returning to allergy shots (no big deal, and well worth it if they work), and a possible, um, well — in carpentry terms, it could only be called “reaming” — of the sinus passages. But first, I must stick my head in a box and let the seers take a reading. There will also be an animal sacrifice of some sort, not because it’s necessary, but because it lends a proper solemnity to the proceedings.

But first, the vacation! Away next week, lying on a beach along a bike path in scenic Burlington, Vermont. It if rains, we visit the Ben & Jerry’s factory. It’s as simple as that.