Readers of this blog undoubtedly know I sometimes create Monday posts geared toward providing helpful info, but also sometimes use it as my personal ranting space. Today’s post is the latter, but it’s going to be a short one. No, I don’t have the coronavirus, but yes, I am under the weather.
In fact, I’ve been laid up with a sinus infection for over a week now—antibiotics, fluids, rest…the whole nine yards.
I actually considered re-posting an old entry from another day when I was sick, but it was too specific to that timeframe. It’s pretty funny, too, now that it’s no longer new. It sure was unfunny at the time.
It’s been a whopping two months since I got sick like this, so I’m not thrilled to be on antibiotics again. I’m one of those guys who believes taking antibiotics pretty much guarantees I’ll get sick again in another six months or a year. Taking probiotics helps, but I dunno.
The reason this happens to me—and I can’t prove this, it’s just my thinking—is that I had one of my parotid glands surgically removed in 2012. That lovely surgery, called a parotidectomy, became necessary because I had a nonmalignant mass growing in it. (Don’t Google the procedure if you’re squeamish, by the way. Yikes.)
The parotids are actually salivary glands, and they’re part of your immune system. Having one permanently missing means a subpar immune system for the rest of your life, in my opinion. My experience since 2012 would seem to bear it out, too.
I write all this partly to vent, but also to try to head off the “helpful” advice people like to give when they learn you get sick one or more times per year. (My mother is a great one for this. “Are you taking a multivitamin?” “Yes, Mom, I take a multivitamin every day.”)
And this post is now already twice as long as I’d planned to write. That means it’s time to say, Happy Monday. I’m going to rest. Stay safe out there, people!
