New Life

So. The Monkey Plague. For the new readers? I get sinus infection after bronchitis after walking pneumonia every single fall, winter, and spring. I think it's a combination of allergies that turn into bacterial infections and the disgrace that is my immune system after trying to drink myself to death for ten years and having had The Meningitis. I will say that last year, even though I was tres miserable, I didn't mind having the quiet life of the invalid. It gave me a reason to make my world a little smaller and live a little simpler. But this year? I do not have time for this shit. No time. I've got people to do and things to see. I have a life. I'm not interested in sitting down for it any longer.

So - when I started sniveling and hacking when I got home from Cowtown, I was not happy. Last year, my parents and my parents' neighbor, my brother and sister in law, and even Miss M tried to talk me into using a neti pot - convinced it would cure my ills. I couldn't. Gag. Ick. Sick and Grossness.






Basically, you pour salt water into one nostril and it comes out the other, along with all the offending CRAPTHATPLUGSYOURNOSE. Then you do it to the other side. NO. NO. NO. But last Saturday when I went to Cowgirl's house, it became clear that something had to break. I was fine all day until I sat down on the floor to play cards with Munchkin Number Two. The sneezing, the coughing, the uncontrollable hacking was a little much. When a three year old calmly, yet insistently says, "Kate! Take a drink of your watah. Watah will make that stop." Your heart kind of goes, "Awww." And you understand that something has to change. Cowgirl is shouting, "We've got bird dander. And dog dander. And cat dander. And kid dander. What do you expect around here?" And I can't NOT go there. I LOVE it at her house.

So, I called Miss M and told her I was going in for the kill. I went to Shopko and found it. I walked around the store with it for a half hour. Then I bought it. I texted her and told her that IT had been purchased, now it was just a matter of convincing myself to USE it. She texted back,

lay on the floor for twenty minutes and start hacking until you can't breathe. that might convince you.

Bitch.

After glancing at the offending box for two hours, I opened it and read the directions. An hour after that, I filled it up. And a half hour after that? I did it. And people? It's like fucking magic. The sneezing stopped. The hacking stopped. I slept like there was no tomorrow and I woke up thinking that a miracle had just taken place in my nose. There was no gagging. No throwing up. Nothing of the sort. Miss M wins the award of the century for suggesting that I do it with my glasses off in the dark so I couldn't see what was coming out my nose. And I don't care. All I know is that it works. It fucking works!

And now you know. I will be pouring salt water in and out of my nose all fall, winter, and spring. I'm a rock star. And you know it.