I've Officially Lost It -- Whatever "It" is

One of the few gifts of being sick is that I cannot smell the great, unwashed public. A sinus infection took root in my head on Friday and kicked my ass all weekend. My sense of smell disappeared, only to be replaced with a dull but unpleasant scent of mucus that is all my olfactory senses can detect. *Sniff, sniff.* Nope. All I have is mucus going on here. Thus, I cooked the stinkiest foods I could think to make all weekend. Everything contained caramelized red onions and garlic, and there was a heap of salmon and steak to be eaten. If I don’t care about the odor, I’m making the stinky foods! Which includes the spinach and artichoke dip, that isn’t stinky per se, but the effects are. “I have no idea what you’re complaining about. I can’t smell a thing!”

Another of the gifts of being sick is that I cannot hear the obnoxious and irritating public. The sinus infection raged so hard that it broke through and gave me a double ear infection. Now I cannot sleep on my sides because the pain in my ears is too much to support the weight of my head on two soft pillows. And everyone sounds like they’re adults in a “Peanuts” cartoon. This is just as well. Not often does anyone say anything worth listening to. “I have no idea what you’re saying. Maybe you should tell it to someone else.”

Ahhh, steroids. Only taking prednisone for a little over a month and suddenly the infections are running rampant through my system.

I’m sure that refusing to take the chemo medication didn’t ingratiate me with my new rheumatologist, so I feel obligated to take the anti-malarial she gave me instead. At least this drug doesn’t stop my body from making bone marrow and cause lymphomas. (How is that drug on the market, I ask.) Anyway, after some time, I guess I can start traveling to malaria-ravaged areas of the globe again. Which is fortunate, because I’m sure they missed me in Africa and Panama. I’m quite popular there, I understand. At least with the mosquitoes.

Then again, do I really want to get on a plane being all immune-suppressed? Probably not. But maybe I could share some of my many infections with others. Perhaps I could get on a plane and pee all over the toilet seat, hand people things after putting them in my mouth first, and rub my nose before reaching out to shake someone’s hand. And this is on top of my anosmia and deafness. Oh yeah! I’m the perfect tourist! I’m the very definition of Americana!

Ahh, finally, a patriotic moment in my life! Being sick is a beautiful thing.

(It could very well be that the infections have breached the blood/brain barrier because I think I’m starting to hallucinate.)