I have the world’s worst sinuses.

Oh, hello! I’m currently in Florida, visiting Abbey and listening to the thunderstorms. But I’ve been housebound this week because I’m sick.

For years, I’ve gotten sinus infections because I believe the openings of my sinuses are so incredibly small that any little illness will simply shut them off and trap everything inside, which causes things to “fester” in my sinuses and makes me deathly ill. Of course, that may not actually be how sinuses work, but it is, in fact, how I think sinuses work, so that’s what I’m sticking with, because I have fifty-three years of experience with my own sinuses, so I think I have a pretty good idea for what’s going on with these glands or whatever they are on my face.

Needless to say, I have a sinus infection right now.

I’m on antibiotics. I find it too bad that we can’t take antibiotics all the time, because I would prefer to never have a sinus infection again. But NO! Some yahoo doctors out there insist that antibiotics shouldn’t be overprescribed to patients because it makes the antibiotics less effective and will, someday, render them entirely useless. And considering the fact some of them already are pretty much useless, some would say that those so-called doctors might in fact be correct. But until the science proves me wrong, I won’t believe it. Even then, science might not prove me wrong, because I have a gut feeling that I’m right, and isn’t that more important?

I used to get regular sinus infections. Literally, I would get them almost every six weeks. This could be from a lot of different factors: bad sinuses, being a teacher, living in highly polluted countries, living in countries with a high probability for infectious diseases. The list goes on. Whatever. I got them. It was just the way it was.

Until 2006.

From 2006-2008, we lived in Ghana. For those who don’t know (and I’m sure many of you do not know), Ghana is in West Africa. While there, I caught everything under the sun, as my wife had not yet conferred her band-teacher-induced-immunity onto me yet. Malaria? I got it. Sinus infections? I got them. And the doctors would never give me the antibiotics that I needed to get rid of those sinus infections. They would give me some weak-ass antibiotic that made me feel better for about a week, and then my sinus infection would come roaring back. What I needed was something STRONG!

But in order to get a strong antibiotic, I needed a strong disease. One day I got sick. I was sure it was a sinus infection. My nose was plugged. I had face headaches. The usual stuff. But I also had a sore throat that felt like I was swallowing broken glass. Tonsillitis, maybe?

I went to the doctor, an African woman who was no-nonsense and forceful. She gave me an examination. “You have Scarlatina,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s like an advanced version of strep throat,” she said. “The infection has traveled from your throat and begun to infect your whole body. It used to be called scarlet fever.”

Scarlet Fever. It was a Victorian disease; something that children died from in the 1800s. And I had it.

“Normally,” she said, “I would give you some antibiotics, but the infection has spread pretty far. Oral antibiotics won’t work. You’ll need an antibiotic injection.”

“Whatever,” I said, feeling so deathly ill that I didn’t care if she had to inject an antibiotic into me. “Just give me something. If it will make me feel better, I’ll do it.”

“Yes, but it’s a pretty powerful antibiotic,” she said.

“I don’t care. Let’s just get it done.”

She went to the other room and came back. “It appears that we don’t have any of the small needles,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that we will have to use one of the larger needles. It might be painful. Partly because of the size of the needle. Partly because of the influx of the antibiotic into your system.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, we usually give a local anesthetic to help with the pain.”

“Okay.”

“But we don’t have one here in the office. I will have to give it to you without anesthetic.”

By this time, I was getting impatient. “I really don’t mind,” I said. After all, I was a man. I could take pain. Plus, I felt so bad that all I wanted was for my misery to end.

“Are you sure?” she asked. This woman, who had given birth, knew pain that I did not. Was she trying to warn me?

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

I was in that sick haze of thought. My mind was foggy. All I could think about was how bad I felt. All I wanted was to feel better.

The doctor smiled at me with only the slightest hint of condescension. “Do you want it in the rear or in your arm?” she said.

“Whatever’s fastest,” I said, rolling up my sleeve.

“It will hurt more in the arm,” she said.

I gave her a stern, I’m a man! I can TAKE IT! look.

“Okay then,” she said.

Then she injected the antibiotic into my shoulder.

It was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life up to that point. The most I similar thing I can attribute to it would be if someone just took their index finger and slowly shoved it through your skin and then started flexing it back and forth. It hurt so bad that my arm began to twitch and the adrenaline from the pain instantly sobered me up from my illness-induced haze.

I gave her a desperate look.

“Almost done,” she said with a calm smile.

She was not halfway through the syringe.

Scarlet Fever was a blessing for me, because whatever horse-tranquilizer antibiotic she gave me was powerful enough to wipe everything out of my system for years. Literally. I did not get sick again for almost two years in any way, shape, or form. My ignorant analysis is that I had some kind of lingering infection that just wouldn’t go away, no matter what I put into my system. But whatever she gave me that day did the trick.

And since then, I’ve been relatively healthy. In fact, I haven’t been sick in a very long while (knock on wood), only recently catching a cold back at the beginning of May. But that cold has lingered, as has my cough. I start to feel better, and then I have a little health collapse. This has not been helped by the fact that two weeks ago I was in China, one week ago I was in the Middle East, and this week I’m in Florida. Oh, and I dealt with the stress of the war and moving on top of all of that. I suppose my body has just gotten down.

But I have some medicine. Got it from my insurance’s telehealth system, where I got a one-minute phone call from a doctor who listened impatiently to my symptoms and then prescribed some antibiotics, which I’m taking now. I tried to tell her my history and that I needed something powerful to get rid of it, because I’ve been sick on and off for two months, but she didn’t bother to listen. She just prescribed me something.

Maybe I should try to get some other good drugs that way?

So, if you’ve made it this far, then here’s your summer work. I have a lot of readers on this here newsletter, and considering I am not on social media anymore, then I want to know what’s up. So, if you’re reading this (and I know if you are or not), send me an email and give me ONE PARAGRAPH (or more, if you feel like it) telling me WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

I’d like to know what’s happening with you, friends! You know all about me! Tell me about YOU!