The Headache Medicine That Gives You Headaches

 Just a few medical thoughts shooting through my mind like a runaway bottle rocket (only the thoughts aren't as exciting). Come to think of it, fireworks were once involved in my medical condition, but never mind.

My annual major sinus infection has arrived, a bit later than usual, possibly as another way to welcome in the New Year. Because I'm having more pain and pressure this time (Naturally--it's the Roaring Pain 20s.), the Doc decided to put me on prednisone.

Despite my previous experience with the stuff.

Well, maybe it'll be different this time. After all, that's what people have been saying about 2022, isn't it?

"It has to be better than 2021!"

Hah. No, it doesn't.

The irony is that last time they gave me prednisone, several years ago, I was struck with one of the typical side effects: severe headache. So, to help my headache, I'm taking a med that gives me headaches.

It could be worse.

Speaking of headaches, the morning I went to pick up the prednisone and my old friends, the antibiotics, we had an ice storm. It wasn't much of an ice storm, but I'm sure my walk to the car was a good preview of how I'll be walking when I'm 90, assuming a sinus infection hasn't killed me by then.

Bad weather, especially when it's cold, tends to give me ... sinus headaches.

Still, a lot of the really bad winter weather this year has been south of us. My humorist friend, Barry Parham, lives in South Carolina, and this year has seen five times the amount of snow we have. I hate snow. The only kind of precipitation I hate more is ... ice.

I survived the trip to pick up my meds (how ironic would it be if I didn't?), and my only near-collision was when I got buzzed by a speed skating competition. Then I came home, read the list of prednisone side-effects, and promptly called in sick on the assumption I'd get them all.

No, of course I didn't call in sick--I don't do that unless I'm running a fever, or missing both legs.(Maybe I would show up if I lost both legs. I've never tried it.) On the subject of showing up, the day before the ice storms I was exposed to someone who the next day tested positive for COVID.

Tell me again how wonderful 2022 is going to be.

It could always be worse.

 

I thought that would give me a week home to write, but no--unfortunately, I'm fully vaccinated, the person who tested positive just had their booster and is asymptomatic, and I'm just not that good at faking illness. Even my grandmother and the dog are feeling better.

Speaking of the dog, the veterinarian says the med she gave us for Beowulf tastes even worse than prednisone, and that's going some. How the vet knows that, I was afraid to ask.

This explains why we gave up trying to give him the pill in food (the dog, not the vet), and Emily had to resort to force. I mean, on the dog--I took mine voluntarily, and thus have no excuse. Emily correctly informed me that I'm not tough enough to do the job, which involves prying open Beowulf's jaws and shooting the pill in like a basketball. All she had to do was avoid the three-point bite.

(Our high school men's basketball team just won their conference championship, so I'm allowed to make a basketball joke even though I hate basketball.)

So, having left the second full week of the year behind, my impression remains the same as it did after the first week: 2022 sucks.

Unless you're a Central Noble basketball player. Or manufacture medicine.

"At least you didn't get vertigo, fella."

 

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