Sometimes the opposite is true.
I thought maybe it was dust. I considered mold, except that when I moved to the dry side of the mountains it got worse: stuffy noses, sinus headaches, tissues and nose blows. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid that I was turning into the kind of boogie man I most feared: a Mouth Breather. It must be some kind of allergy.
I could have gone to the allergist, but this is 2020. If one can put off any sort of medical tweaking that doesn’t have to do with the raging pandemic, now is the time for procrastination. So I took Sudafed or Benadryl at night and blew my nose during the day.
But coronavirus or no coronavirus, my mom’s glasses were causing her pain and I have insurance to burn so I booked a mother-and-daughter appointment at the local eye-doctor-slash-exploitative-eyeglass-seller. The eyeglass prices were ludicrous but the eye doctor seemed genuine and knowledgable.
I got the usual news that my eyes were dry and that I should use more eye drops. Yeah, I have occasionally allowed them to get so dry that I damaged my corneas, sure, but just because I have not changed my habits when will that ever happen again? Anyway, my sinuses and nose were always running. How could my eyes be dry? She told me that, as backwards as it may seem, the runny nose is often a symptom of dry eyes, as your body makes more goo to make up for the missing eye goo. Never heard of such a thing and I’ve been going to doctors, eye and otherwise, for half a century. Is she making this up? Turns out she’s not. Eyes can be dry from lack of tears, but also from poor tear quality. If your tears don’t have enough oil in them, they will not do the job well enough and your body will just make more bad tears to make up in volume what they lack in craftsmanship.
What a concept. I really didn’t care that my eyes were dry. I always run them until the needle is past empty because I know that when the needle is on empty there is still a mile or two left in the old lenses if I just give them a good rub. But my stuffy, stuffy nose. I am up to here with my stuffy nose. If artificial tears will help, let's dump some in there and step on the accelerator.
If I could sniff for you via words on paper I would. It’s a deep, unencumbered, windy sniff. It’s been like this since I started using these little one-use (really two or three use) artificial tear vials. I have some in my purse, on my bed side table, on my desk. My headaches are lessened. My tissue use has plummeted. It has been the easiest and most immediate cure of any malady I have ever suffered. It was almost worth the eleven hundred dollar glasses I purchased on the way out of the doctor’s office.
A small badge of achievement for reading a full essay on snot. A Fall view on a Smith Rocks trail.