This is a pretty gross post about the final stages of my cold. Read on if you dare.
After a couple of weeks sick, climaxing in a couple of bouts of vomiting and a couple of days of nausea, I finally started a course of azithromycin to kill the beast in my head, which by that point had my sinuses so swollen and impacted that it literally made me dizzy.
On Monday, Jenny was at last feeling more or less herself, which made my ongoing illness all the more frustrating. But at about 4 a.m. that night, I woke up feeling like my sinuses were full of fluid.
Slipping into the bathroom so as not to wake Jenny, I began to blow my nose, and the most spectacular stuff came out. (I warned you this was gross): thick mucus in varying shades of yellow, brown and acid green, some of which must’ve been putrifying for days. It felt great to get it out, like popping a huge pimple, but I was appalled at the sheer quantity, which probably came to a couple of tablespoonfuls.
That was just the left side. At about 11, while I was at work, the right side decided to open up, and a similar if somewhat less copious drainage took place. The shifts in internal pressure left me dizzy for a couple of hours, and the exposure of wounded sinuses to the air felt raw and painful.
The drainage continued through the day, but for the first time in weeks, I felt like I was essentially not sick. I’ve still got some lingering symptoms — my head still doesn’t resonate quite right, I’ve still got an occasional wet cough, and my sinuses are still healing up — but I’m definitely in much better condition than I was.