During the last three weeks of the winter show last year (January/February 2015) I got my first ever sinus infect. I took me probably a month and a half to recognize it and get antibiotics (so the antibiotics ended around the beginning of April). The antibiotics worked great and I was actually back to hiking with my dogs.
Around June, I started getting chronic congestion; nothing bad, but considering I don't have seasonal allergies, unusual. The first week of August, it all came to a head. I was dizzy, congested, fatigued, had horrible sinus and ear pain and it all hit me severely over the course of two days. I got antibiotics on the fourth day luckily, though it took a bit to convince my doctor that yes, it was in fact a sinus infection even though it'd only been a few days. The antibiotics did their job.
Around September, only a few weeks after my antibiotic regiment ended, my chronic congestion came back. And then in November, I got sick with a sinus infection, yet again. So antibiotics it was. Right after I had ended them, I got the worst cold imaginable and actually had to get someone to cover my track at work. My doctor said it was too soon to be another sinus infection and to wait and see if it held on. But she did refer me to a specialist.
Well, my symptoms did get better, so it probably was a cold. But in February I did get another full blown sinus infection, and this time I didn't hesitate, I called the specialist and got an appointment three days after my symptoms manifested. Like my second sinus infection, my symptoms progressed quickly and by the time I saw the doctor I was a peak un healthiness and unhappiness.
The specialist was a saint. She saw I was miserable and looked at my sinuses and saw they were inflamed. She prescribed a three week, super heavy course of antibiotics, a steroidal nasal spray, and ear drops. She also told me to use nasal irrigation at least once a day. Then, after the sinus infection had a chance to clear up, I was scheduled for a CT scan and follow up. And I followed all the instructions. I took my meds every single day. After the first three days, I felt better. After five days had passed though, I started tech for my current show and I have never been so miserably sick in my life, including the cold from hell from the previous December.
I don't even remember most of tech. I sat next to my (very very warm) follow spot, wrapped in a blanket, running a fever and barely able to stand long enough to execute my cues (we called the booth The Plague Ward for that tech because I had a sinus infection with added virus and the light board programmer had strep with an added virus). Four days into tech, I was so bad I could barely remember my name. I called the nurse's hotline and she told me I'd probably caught a virus that had been going around and that she was going to ask the specialist to prescribe me steroids to help. Well, thankfully the doctor did prescribe me steroids, and they did help, and did get me through the rest of tech. There was about a 36 hour stretch where I felt almost healthy. But I was super careful not to overdo it, despite feeling better. Then about a week later (still with one week of heavy antibiotics to go), I caught yet another cold, one that settled deep in my throat.
The day that my antibiotics ended, I went in for my CT scan. They had me in and out in under twenty minutes which was awesome. The technician asked if they were doing the CT because they thought I needed surgery. I said that they hadn't explicitly said but I suspected that'd be the case. He assured me it was quite a common case and procedure. And indeed, I did suspect that I'd need surgery, since I was having the exact same symptoms that my sister had been having the previous year. She had a sinus endoscopy and she's been healthy ever since.
So, three days later, I went back to the specialist for the follow up, so she could read my results. She came in and noted I looked better and inquired what percentage I was feeling better and I said around 70%. She then asked me when I had last felt 100% better and I told her, gulping to avoid tears, that I honestly didn't remember. It was at that point that I hadn't even been able to hike or even go to the dog park since June the year before.
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