Sympathy and diagnosis are two different things. They are both Greek in origin, but so are feta cheese and democracy. “Pathos,” of course, is “to feel.” Add “sym” and you get “to feel with.” “Gnosis” is knowledge. Add “dia” and you get “killing me with knowledge.” Killing. Me.
See, the thing is that I know why I have been sniffling for the better part of three weeks. In addition to having some overdue inner child work, I have a deviated septum. (Somebody broke my nose. I think it was Malcolm Rios in Poplar Lodge during the Battle for the Skittles, but I can’t be sure.) I also have scars. Deep emotional scars and scars in my sinuses from previous sinus infections. Plus a couple of other things that to continue to list would turn this into the lunch conversation at Givens Estates. Suffice it to say that I have wrestled with my nasal cavity long enough to know what I am dealing with.
So when someone says “Oh, yes, you must be having allergies. This pollen is so bad. My friend Alice has allergies too!” I want to tell her that she can help her friend and me by driving to the middle of the Smoky Park bridge and taking a sharp right. Her assumption is that I have not taken the time or energy to figure out what is wrong with me, and if I only knew I would do something about it.
She doesn’t want to know about Malcolm Rios and the Battle of the Skittles. She does not want to know about the intranasal steriod which I missed for 3 days right when the cold got started. She does not want to know about last year’s full facial MRI. She wants to know something about me that I do not know. She wants to make me better, rather than share my ills. I want to explain, in excruciating detail and colorful language, why she is wrong. Instead, I say “huh” in a way that lets her think she has told me something and which only I know means “go to hell.”
have you tried zyrtec-d?
Yes. Everyday, in fact. Well, not Zyrtec-d, just good ole Zyrtec. Generic Zyrtec, actuall, because CVS sells them in a bottle that has 365 tablets. When the going gets rough, I add in the “D” part with a little generic psuedoephedrine. That’s the stuff they make meth out of, you know. That, plus a sinus wash, plus some progesterone, and some vitamin C, echinacea, and zinc often do the trick. Mucinex is good stuff too. But yes, I have tried Zyrtec. The real fix probably involves surgery, but I’m not a fan of non-essential surgical procedures at this point.