Tuesday, July 01, 2008

My Magical Cure: Stop Huffing Mold

So starting in the middle of June, right when it first got hot out and stayed that way, I got a sinus infection and just felt all around crummy. Congested, pressure, lots of yuck, fatigue and general misery and malaise. I tried Sudafed Sinusm and my neti pot, pound water, use tons of tissues and rest.

I would rest, mind you, in our bedroom with the super duper air conditioner. I really couldn't call in sick (news breaking all the time, limited number of days off), so I would take it easy before work when I worked the night shift, reading in the bedroom with the AC on full blast. I would feel better when I was working, though the fatigue lingered, so I would take a nap when I got home if I worked the day shift. And I would wake up feeling like crap. And on and on.

After 10 days of this, I procured some antibiotics, which did absolutely nothing for me. After 3 more days of THAT, I started trying to figure out the variable: Go to bed feel a little better, wake up feeling like crap. Feel marginally better at work, come home and rest, start feeling like crap.

And the variable is.... The air conditioner in the bedroom was full of toxic mold. Awesome! We swapped out the moldy one for the slightly less cool (but non-moldy) one we had in the office and- surprise! I feel GREAT.

You know all those hours napping, resting, reading and getting plenty of sleep in the comfortable bedroom? I was practically sucking mold directly off the tap. Joel has completely dismantled the moldy one, cleaned all its innards and reassembled it. He keeps joking about his "manliness" vis a vis his foray into heating and cooling repair. Any minute now he's going to start drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer out of the can and barking a la Tim Allen on Home Improvement, but do I mind? No, I do not. I can BREATHE!

3 comments:

Cara said...

DUDE. I'm glad you found the problem! I hate to say it, but if the mold comes back you might want to consider buying some industrial-grade cleaner because that stuff tends to recur, even on plastics and metals. You do not want an invasive sinus mold infection. Antifungal meds suck.

See you this weekend!

Kelly said...

Everybody ought to have an engineer, a fix it dear...okay, how about we just substitute engineer for scientist and then we'll cover all the bases?

Anonymous said...

OMG. I'm glad you figured it out... that's scary!Okay, now I'm scared about our air conditioner! I'm glad you're feeling better...