The alien in my head

Today's Miles: I haven't run in over 2 weeks. :(


I also haven't blogged recently. I haven't felt the inspiration. Not running does not get my writing-juices flowing so you have been missing out.

Sorry for that.

But Here Ya' Go. Though by the end you may never read my nasty blog again....

That's my CowHerdingFriendRachael.

And. That. Ain't. Mud.

Ya see....that's the thing about us girls that leave & breathe & occasionally swallow cow manure. There's not a whole lot that's going to gross us out. (I would've posted pictures of me in that kind of nastiness, but I'm too lazy to scan pictures tonight. Maybe another time. Thanks for modeling Rachael!)

Well, there are these two little things that gross me out:
1 - Vomit (I'm a sympathetic puker - even for myself)
2 - SnotRockets

So let me tell you about this week. Sunday, I drove 9 hours to PA. Got all cozy in Mi Casa Holiday Inn Express for the night. Woke up at 12am FREEZING cold. I'm talking - shaking the bed so hard the people next door thought I was throwing down for the long haul - kind of shivering! Even with the thermostat cranked above 80F, I found NO relief. An entire night of chills, freezing cold, feverish hell.

Monday morning. I'm still feverish. Throat is afire. But I manage to shower and go downstairs for bananas and waffles. After 4 bites, I realized what a big mistake this was. Still feverish, weak, dizzy, I manage to get back up to my 3rd floor room and bust through the door. I had a split second to make this decision.....

Should I:

1) throw up in the toilet - where Who-Know's-What has been sitting there doing God-Know's-What and Who Knows if it was ever cleaned? Or
2) throw up in the shower - thinking I'm going to have to take another shower in here and banana chunks won't fit down that drain cover and if I have to keep looking at it, I'll throw up some more.

The decision:  the toilet. I've never hovered so well while vomiting, but I managed. Afterward, I knew I had made the right decision because the shower would NOT have handled that well. I'll skip the part about the toilet getting stopped up and not flushing completely and I simply closed the lid, went about my day and checked out.

I spent the next hour with my feverish face plastered on the cool tile floor of the bathroom wondering if I could get athlete's foot on my face.

Then magically - I'm good. Time to go to work. Quick shower (told ya') and off we go. I don't feel great, but I'll manage.

Monday and Tuesday degraded significantly. More fevers. More painful throats. My sinuses are getting chocked full & pressurized. Thankfully no more vomiting. But by Tuesday night, I was searching for a clinic. No luck. (I seriously do not know how people in rural America survive with the closest doctor being an hour away.) So, Wednesday morning, I found myself in the pharmacy stocking up on Advil (to reduce the swelling in my nasal passages), Tylenol (to reduce my fever), Musinex (to break up this congestion) and a sinus irrigation system.

Thanks to my cousin Aubrey Maples Saus and my good friend Jason Webb (yes, you are named because this is SO your fault!), I was convinced I needed a Neil Med Sinus Rinse mostly because you don't have to be graceful like with a Neti pot, and you add a little pressure to it. (At this point, I needed a firehose.)

I was NOT properly prepared for what was about to take place. Which is silly, because it all makes perfect sense now.

By Wednesday night my head was so full of snot, I couldn't hold it up straight. My face was so puffy, I couldn't hardly see out of my right eye and my head HURT. I knew I smelled like a cow so I thought, "Well, why not shower and do a sinus rinse while you're in there. Two for one!"

Remember the SnotRocket comment from earlier. I don't know why they gross me out. But they do. Buggers don't. Blowing your nose in a tissue don't (unless you do it at the dinner table in which I will punch you in the face). You are only allowed SnotRockets while out on a long run & you're less than 1/2 way home and you forgot your snot rag. Otherwise, wipe it on your sleeve or even your arm! But just blowing out a SnotRocket on the ground makes me gag! And if you do that throat clearing, pulling snot out of the back of your throat, and spitting it out thing.....BLLLEEEEEAAAAGGGGHHH! Induce....vomiting.....

So, imagine:

Jabba the Hut eating The Blob, then pooping it out, and eating it again, and pooping it out again.

Oh, what? That wasn't enough visual for you? Here you go....

This...

Plus This.....

Equals.....

Don't worry, I'll spare you a picture of that.....


This is what I learned from a sinus rinse:

1) When your snot hole is plugged full and you use a sinus irrigation system that has some pressure to it - you can either blow out your ear drum or shoot snot across a bathtub with impressive force or both.

2) Do not use an irrigation system in a shower with a central drain. The first rinse, I was climbing the walls like drunken Spider Man (because my balance is so off from popping my ear, that I nearly fall over) trying not to step on JabbaBlob's Poop. The second rinse, I was circling the drain on the opposite side of JabbaBlob's Poop like we were doing some weird dance. Around. And Around. And Around.

3) Do NOT sneeze just after rinsing unless you have a towel to catch it in. Otherwise, you might blow it all over the side of the bathtub. Priority Club is SO going to revoke my Platinum membership after this week.

4) Did you know that your snot hole can hold about 200 ml of JabbaBlob's Poop. And it can replenish in less than 12 hours?

Repeat the above mentioned scenarios for 3 more days. But with a little more grace (or as much as you can muster while using a snot irrigator).

By Friday night, I needed an exorcist.

All of this irrigating only proved to me that I had an alien growing in my head.

Since I wasn't going to make it back in time to see my doctor, I found a Take Care Clinic in Knoxville this morning.

The wonderfully sweet RN informed me that I had a serious case of a sinus infection (ah....duh). And that she was going to put me on an antibiotic (YAY!) and in a very sweet voice, "A steroid that will give you Wicked Witch of the West PMS."

Here's hoping the antibiotic kicks in before the steroid!

Gotta Run...