Things got interesting around here in early March. Budge got sick. We were supposed to go to my stepmother’s birthday dinner party but Budge came home feeling under the weather. Since we didn’t know what it was, and Daddy isn’t in the best health anymore, I called my sister-in-law and let her know we wouldn’t be coming. I thought it was a late winter cold or something simple.

She didn’t get better over the weekend. She actually got worse. Budge took the day off, and I was on the phone first thing Monday morning with her doctor’s office to try to have her seen. No luck. The practice only had one doctor working and the day was completely booked up. Just as an aside, has anyone besides me noticed doctors don’t practice like the used to? If you’re sick, they don’t want you coming in, they do a telehealth visit. I’m telling you, COVID ruined the world.

Speaking of COVID, we went to a local urgent care office to find out Budge, in fact, had a nice healthy case of the new flu — COVID. The doctor gave her a cough syrup and sent her on her way since she was too late to get the new COVID medicine. That took care of the rest of the week for her from school since she couldn’t go back as long as she was contagious, not that anyone really knows what that means anymore.

As the week wore on, Budge’s COVID got better, but right exactly on the heels of it, just as she was getting over it, she developed a sinus infection. Now understand, we’ve been married nearly thirty years and Budge has had a sinus infection in February or March every year. Some years are no biggies, while others can get pretty severe. This bad boy was severe. She was blowing out green chunks from her nose and it swiftly went to her chest to join the leftovers of COVID. She was taking Sudafed, Mucinex, and Advil as much as she could to try to dry up her head and chest. It was a losing battle though. She has to have an antibiotic to beat the sinus infection every time.

Luckily, I again hit the phones bright and early on Friday morning and the one doctor had an opening. I took her to Mauldin to said doctor where she got a ten day run of Amoxicillin, a Prednisone taper, and some more cough syrup. Figured a couple of days into the antibiotic and she’d be right as rain like always. We went and ate breakfast, picked up her prescriptions at CVS, and went home. Budge took her first dose of antibiotic and we took a nap. Little did we know what was in store for us later on that Friday.

Budge started about 5:00 PM complaining of pain in her face. I thought she was talking about the regular pain one has anytime your sinuses are infected, but she said this was different. It was sharper than she’d ever had before. I gave her some Advil but it didn’t help. She was really hurting. She asked if we could go to the emergency room and I told her of course we could, so we set off for the new ER here in Simpsonville that Bon Secours just built.

We got to the ER about 6:00 on Friday. It was really quiet and they got us right back in to the doctor, or in this case, the Physician’s Assistant. He was great. First of all, he took Budge’s pain seriously and didn’t try to blow it off like I’ve seen some doctors do other people. He laid out his treatment plan which included a high powered pain pill right then, a prescription for more pain pills for later, and a higher dose of Prednisone than we’d gotten at the primary care doctor’s office. He wanted to do a really high dose of steroids but once he found out Budge is diabetic, he cancelled that idea since steroids play hell with sugar levels.

We left the ER about 8:00 PM, went to CVS to drop off the prescriptions, then went and got a bite to eat. I drove to CVS because Budge had the pain pill in her so she wasn’t supposed to drive. True story though, I can’t hardly see at night driving anymore. The glare messes with my vision and all, so I don’t usually drive at night. Budge switched with me at CVS and drove to Zaxby’s for supper then home. I thought we were clear and cruising.

[Morgan Freeman voice-over]: But in fact, they were NOT clear and cruising.

By the time we got home around 10:00 PM, the high powered pain pill from the ER was already wearing off. Budge said her pain went from a 5 at supper to an 8 when we got home. She took another pain pill and tried to rest. I dozed off but she woke me up a short time later screaming. She was in agony. She said the pain was a 10/10 like she’d never felt since she had her gall bladder removed! I was trying to comfort her but she was out of her head with the pain. I did the only thing I knew to do and gave her one of my 2mg Xanax pills. It didn’t phase her. She was pacing the floor pulling her hair out with both hands from the pain. She would pick up a bottle and throw it just trying to get a little relief.

I was worried — really worried, because I’d never seen her like that in all our years together. She was scream-crying and she asked me something that chilled me to the bone. She wanted to know if I thought her cutting herself would at least move the pain out of her face! I’m pretty good in situations like this where she’d concerned though so I didn’t panic. She looked at me through her tears and begged me to go back to the ER. I lost no time getting her there.

It was very quiet again for a Friday night / Saturday morning. Budge got checked in and the triage nurse made her feel better by telling her this was becoming more common with sinus infections and people were describing it as a kidney stone in the face. We got in a cube about 1:00 AM and the Xanax had started helping. It did nothing to ease the pain, but it did calm her down so she could be somewhat coherent. The doctor came in and again, took her pain completely seriously. She ordered a blood panel and a CAT scan of Budge’s face. She said she wanted to be sure no fungal balls had sprouted in Budge’s sinus cavity.

They sent the blood off to the lab and the nurse came and took Budge to the CAT scan. She came back, calm, but still in agony. About thirty minutes later, the nurse came back and said the blood and CAT scans were both clear of anything abnormal except the right side of her face where the pain was was full of infection and packed with goop.

This time, the doctor wasn’t playing with Budge’s pain. The nurse had a syringe of what she assured Budge WOULD stop her pain. She proceeded to give Budge 6mgs of pure morphine. I was sure that would fix things, but the 10/10 pain in her face dropped immediately to her stomach! The nurse told the doctor who wasn’t worried. She said it was a side effect of the morphine and gave Budge a GI cocktail that eased up her stomach. Finally, about 3:30, my precious Budge was pain free and beginning to doze off from the drugs.

About 4:00 the nurse came back in and asked Budge how her pain was now. Budge barely raised one arm and weakly held up four fingers than dropped her arm right back down. The nurse smiled at me and asked me if I wanted her to get our discharge papers. I told her it looked like we were fine. So I went and got the car while the nurse got Budge into a new swanky wheelchair. Between the two of us, we got her in the car and I started the drive home.

Now remember, I can’t see good, and Budge knows this, so she is leaning over patting me on the arm and telling me I was doing so good and she was proud of me. Then she perked up and asked me if I wanted HER to drive the rest of the way. I assured her that no, no I did not want her in her morphine haze to drive us but I was thankful for the offer. Meanwhile, I was worried about how I was going to get her in the house up the steps.

Turns out, she got in the house like a champ. We didn’t walk on the stepping stones, instead opting to walk out in the yard, but she booped up the steps like it was nothing! I got her inside and of course, she had to pee, so I got her to the toilet and back to her recliner where she sleeps. I tucked her in and she was babbling about something, and I mean literally babbling — think baby talk. I just told her she was fine now and to go on to sleep, which she did. I collapsed on the couch and was asleep in minutes.

Budge slept ALL the next day except for five minute intervals when I’d wake her up to give her her meds then she passed right back out. She finally got up very groggily at 7:30 Saturday night. It was dark, and the last thing she remembered was it being dark so she asked me how she had only slept three hours. I told her she had not slept three hours, but had actually slept fourteen, almost fifteen hours. She nodded and went back to her recliner where she stayed until 2:00 Sunday afternoon!

She didn’t hurt anymore, and she had a follow up appointment with an ENT. Soon as school’s out, she’s going to have to have sinus surgery to make sure this never happens again. She missed eight days of school which is unheard of for Budge, but she’s all better now, except for a lingering COVID cough.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on, our septic tank backed up into the house and I was working on getting someone out to pump it and clear our main sewer line in the house! I was run ragged but that’s a story for another day.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!