Tuesday, May 10, 2016

i'm alive


Everyone bangs on about how painful it is to get your wisdom teeth extracted, or how horrendous bronchitis and pneumonia are, or how undergoing active labour without anesthetic is, like, the worst pain ever. 

Sure. I shan't dispute that.

When someone says "think of one of the most physically painful things that's happened to you," what do you think of?
Maybe a leg being torn off?
Maybe less shocking and vitriolic; haemorrhoids. Ja. Those are pretty painful. A stye in your eyeball? Sciatica?

All painful, but not diabolic.

What I'm getting at here, is that there is an affliction that runs amok humanity, that is simply not documented enough.

It's called SINUSITIS. I've italicised and capitalised because if you're sensible, you'll fucking memorise that. In your head. When you think it's going to explode like a fucking watermelon.

'Oh, sinusitis?' you say. 'When you have a little bit of snot stuck in your face?' you say. 'When you have a little bit of snot and a little bit of post-nasal sniffles?'

No. That is a cold. Sinusitis is the single most painful thing to happen to my face since I had my wisdom teeth taken out and they hadn't deployed the morphine yet.

Oh, there is snot alright. But it's stuck. In your face. And it accumulates such that it exerts a force of pressure so acute, onto your molars, teeth, temples, eyeball sockets, brain, that you honestly believe - and wish - in your darkest hour - that you would just explode in a shower of mucus.

The short story goes like this. I got a cold last week. I largely ignored it, because mother and because had stuff I had to get done at work, so I just trucked on.
Over the weekend, we went out to enjoy the sunshine, and my head started to throb. The throb turned into a full-on, 'Oh my fuck, I think I have an abscess growing under my molar."
And for the first time in this pregnancy, I took paracetamol.

It just about took the edge off, for like an hour. But to say I didn't sleep at all for the last two nights is to speak the truth. I haven't. Not even with a cold, refrigerated gel pack pressed up onto my face.

Apparently this face-fucking, molar-melting, mucus-manufacturing thing is more prevalent in women in their third trimester,  [be warned, it's coming for you], so just want to put it out there.

Everything you have learnt about pain is not largely a lie. But like how dinosaurs are omitted from the book of Genesis in the Bible, so is sinusitis omitted from the book of Common Everyday Painful Afflications.

I'm on the antibiotics and the paracetamol. If I wasn't preggo, I'd be on the morphine. I'm not throwing shade on your own versions of pain; but don't judge until one side of your face is so swollen that you have to cut your food up into teensy little pieces because your mouth is too swollen to open properly.

That's all.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's the worst bit of pregnancy. Oh, you've sliced your hand open and need 27 stitches? Here, have a paracetamol.

Hope you feel better soon!

(PS we're a week apart in terms of "official due date"....so I KNOW how you are feeling!)

anise jars said...

I recommend N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC). It's a mucolytic sold here in SA as ACC200.
Used to feel like my face was about to explode. Haven't had a problem since I started
using it about 6 years ago. Wish I'd known about it 30 years ago.

Coffee and Books Cape Town said...

I recommend Friar's Balsam in a bowl of boiling water. (pre-heat the bowl).
Towel over head. Inhale for 30mins, each day.
One of your Grand Dad's self-medication recipes from WWII that works xx

Maryanne Papanicolaou nee Beverley said...

Try steaming over a basin of hot water. You can add some herbs or essential oils but just water does help to release the gunge. See here http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Steam-to-Relieve-Sinus-Pressure