Slightly Off the Mark: A CAT Scan Is Nothing To Sneeze At

I'd planned reruns and pre-written blogs until the Haunted History project was finished, but I popped in to tell everyone the source of my constant head pain and sinus infections has finally been isolated.

It was in my sinuses.

Maybe I should be more specific. Various allergy/sinus/head doctors have poked and prodded me for years. A sleep study revealed I do, in fact, sleep. My allergy tests showed I was, indeed, allergic. To everything. I even had surgery to unclog a lower part of my sinuses that seemed to be causing the trouble. Still, in recent months the pain became sometimes debilitating, although I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it. Witnesses may disagree.

While typing this I realized I should have taken a medical leave from the fire department, for all the good I've done the last couple of years. What a headache.

"You expect me to sleep with this thing on?"

I found out after we got Beowulf that I was allergic to dogs, but refused to give him up. Now that he's passed you'd think maybe it would get a little better, but instead my sinus infections kept on coming and the headaches got worse and worse. The truth is, many days in recent months the headaches were so bad I was incapable of doing much of anything ... but I could still write, so I told myself it was all good.

It wasn't.

So the allergy doctor suggested a CAT scan. I patiently (because I'm the patient) explained to him that would be bad, as one of my worst allergies was to cats. I hugged Beowulf every day, but if I came within a block of a cat I ended up looking like patient zero in a zombie outbreak.

A brave photographer caught this assassination attempt.

Turns out I got my dander up for nothing: CAT is an acronym, which stands for ... um ... something medical. Not only that, but it took all of five minutes, and the doctor would be waiting to show me the results right after.

Only the doctor was called away to unplanned surgery, and I had to wait a week and a half. Just to let the imagination simmer a bit.

When I finally saw him, Doctor Herr, who's a he, didn't even bother poking and prodding much. "Your two uppermost sinuses," he explained, "are completely blocked. Nothing can get out, and that's where your sinus infections have been hiding."

My sinuses were constipated.

Dr. Herr (who's a he) didn't explain to me how the infection itself got out, but maybe it has a special pass. In any case, we could try another course of the same antibiotics that didn't work last time, or he could go down to Doc's Hardware, rent a roto-rooter, and dig that sucker out.

That's not exactly the way he described it.

"Dude, I may be a doggie angel now, but I can't protect you from a mad doctor with a post hole digger."

So at the end of September I'm going under the knife, and also under the needle and the drill, and possibly the hammer and chisel. It's more major than my other sinus surgery, but Dr. Herr (who may be a her, I didn't ask) told me if he drills through to my brain, he'll just switch to reverse. Maybe I'll come out of surgery able to speak Latin, or play the violin. Or play Latin violin music.

Hope to see you at my first concert.