Sickness

I'll be the first to agree that the snuffles, sniffs, grunts, and snorts of a soul with chronic sinus troubles are disgusting and annoying. That being said, I suffer from chronic sinus trouble. Its just a part of life. So I try to be aware of it and live with discomfort to let others be comfortable. Recently I've been struck down by some uncommon strain of cold brewed up in the STD laden dens of drug abusing mothers. This violent disease migrated from its home through an uncared for child to my friend Shannon who works with broken homes and families. She gave it to Joel and the disease seeing me as the fulfillment of all its hopes and dreams leaped from his person after a short stay of only three days and fell madly and deeply in love with its new home... my body. So along came all the sinus pressure and runny nose that you can blow all day and still never breathe through. The sore aching muscles and red watery eyes came next. This morning I awoke with a pimple in my ear and a swollen upper left eyelid. Its as if my body has decided to just kind of decentralize the infection and swell up everywhere hoping to hit the right spot. I didn't go to work yesterday and so I thought maybe I could chase the disease out by not being a vacation ground. So I took one of those long showers you take when you feel infectious and can't breathe. The kind with the hot and cold water in measured alternating proportions till the nerves in your face can't tell the difference and you're pretty sure your nose has stopped running for good till fifteen minutes later when the skin under your nose wonders if you've ever heard of name brand kleenex cuz the toilet paper you're using feels like sandpaper. At this point you're reminded of all the cold/flu/sinus/headache/coughing/sneezing/runny nose/cancer medication ads you've seen and so you head for the medicine rack. There you take every vitamin and pill you safely can carefully reading all the buzz words on the packaging. Magical sayings like "runny nose" and "Sinus pressure" make you think, "Yes! They know my pain! I'm understood!" But an hour later you wonder if all the pills really do anything since you still feel like crap.

So I go to work. I feel better than I did yesterday and that's quite a lot. But a half hour later I get kicked off the computer because another project needs rendered on it so I wander the halls looking for an open space where I can set up my lap top and do some online training. I finally touch down in the lunch area which doesn't qualify as a room because its only separated from the rest of the building by cubicle walls. What a fun invention! Walls that aren't real...

I'm there for the next hour or two working through some training tutorials for CS4 when a tortured looking guy stumbles in. His extra large knit shirt hangs on his limp and squalored frame like a white flag of surrender. He wears the tense expression of a chihuahua at 296 psi.

"Do you have a cold or something?"

I nod.

"Are you on break or are you working?"

I tell him I'm working. He stands there looking frayed.

"Do you have an office or somewhere else you can go?"

I tell him I do but someone else is there right now. He looks like a man who's bladder might explode at any minute.

"Well its grossing me out. You're making it so I can't work."

an awkward pause followed by my exit.

I realize the sniffs and coughs are annoying. But how do you think I feel? Do I look like I'm enjoying not breathing? I was being as quiet and restrained as I possibly could knowing that I'm in a non room separated from all the other people at work by some four-foot non walls. I take it from the way this grown man was grossed out by my intermittent sniffs and coughs that this is the kind of guy whose wife is stuck cleaning the toilet in his house because he gets nauseous. He can sit on one all day no problem, but make him turn around and wipe it down with rubber gloves on and he's suddenly heaving. Ridiculous. I probably should have returned after finding once again that I had no place to work, but I called it a day instead leaving the poor man to sit in pained silence wincing every time the refrigerator door opened and heaving up soggy cornflakes whenever someone bites into a sandwich.

Oh yeah, with any luck my horrible disease will find a new host within the next few days. Gloria.