Sick Day

I took a sick day today. I don't know what it is about the Delaware Valley area, but this is the second year in a row that I've had incredible sinus congestion. I've lived for extended periods of time in north Louisiana, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York and Paris, and nowhere else have I ever had problems like this. Last year my head congestion developed into a pretty nasty sinus infection, which as you can imagine is no fun for anyone. For the last week I sound like I've been speaking from the bottom of a well. I've been getting sinus headaches, which I've never had before, but now I promise that I'll never make fun of sinus headache medicine or NyQuil commercials again. A couple of times this week after irrigating my sinuses and blowing my nose, I could hear my sinuses pop open. Not feel, but hear. One night my congestion was so bad that when I turned my head, my ears actually popped. 

Well, last night was a new low when I realized during dinner that I couldn't taste anything. Sweet, savory, salty ... nothing. To top it off, later that night I started getting chills and muscle aches suggesting the onset of the flu. I actually got a flu shot for the first time on Saturday, so perhaps I was just feeling the pleasant side effects of the shot, but I wasn't taking any chances. I went to sleep at 9:30 (not to bed, mind you, but to sleep) and didn't wake up until Sofia knocked on my bedroom door at 7:00 this morning. I e-mailed my secretary to let her know that I would be out of the office and promptly went back to sleep.  I woke up four hours later, still terribly congested, but mercifully without any aches or other flu symptoms. Amazingly enough considering that I got 13+ hours of sleep last night, I'm still pretty tired; I think that I'll call it a night pretty soon and get up early tomorrow to try to get some exercise and fight off this cold naturally. If that doesn't work, I'm going to ask my doctor to prescribe me a heavy regimen of antibiotics to kick this sucker for good. I don't know if this is something that I can look forward to every year, but if so, I might need to spend every winter in one of those disco clubs that John Travolta hung around in during the 80s.