The pain was finally gone. You know the one, the sinus infection usually causes your face to get a little tight, and you know it’s over when you start with the thick mucus, followed by the dark colored mucus, and then your sinus finally popping, thus ending the misery. I had all that after two weeks of suffering, well, two weeks of everything but the popping.

I had no reason to believe things would get worse, obviously, because the headaches were gone. I was still a little stuffy, and my chest was a bit tight, but it was all routine, and I figured that since everything ended, I was just going through a head cold. No biggie.

Needless to say, when I was at work yesterday, I was surprised. First, the sneezing. “Fuck,” I thought, “I think I’m allergic to the dust in here.” I wiped my desk down and went back to work.

Again, more sneezing, this time accompanied with chills. “Ugh, I must be cold,” I complained, so I went into the break room and got my jacket. I put it on, went back to work, and that was that.

More sneezing, more chills, and now a headache. The pain wasn’t really noticable at first, but then it just kept pulsating until I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on. By then, it was too late.

The right side of my face was compounded, thus crushing the teeth on the right side of my face together. I knew I was in trouble when I first felt that, but the pain was so intense and unlike anything I ever experienced before when my whole upper mandible became numb.

I was apparently face down on my desk with my hand soaked in tears because of all the pain. I don’t really know how I got to that step, honestly. I grabbed the side of my neck, under my ear, my face, anything trying to stop it.

My supervisors helped me to the break room, got me water, and called me a paramedic. I felt so embarrassed, but what could I really do? They came in, checked me over, asked me questions, and then did the thing I dread most – got the needle out.

I was already in tears, but this time I was proud of myself. I watched him set it up, clean my arm, and thisclose to actually pricking me. I turned away, he did the job, and then did his business with the sucking of my blood, which I didn’t mind watching.

They strapped me down in some wheelchair thing, brought me out, and took me to the hospital. There, I was dreading the end result – the bill. See, when you haven’t been working for over five months, when the last job you had was a part time gig, and when all the money you saved was depleted thanks to bills and just trying to get by, things like money problems supercedes anything else.

They registered me, got me in an exam room, and I waited for the doctor. “I wanna go hooooome,” she screamed from the hallway. Some old woman repeatedly beckoned to leave, all the while I was there, to the point where I wanted to go out and stab her.

One of the nurses came in, and I asked how long the woman was there for. “She came in last night,” she told me. “And she’s been screaming like that since she got here.”

Wonderful, I have a pulsating head pain and for the next God-knows-how-long I’m going to have to endure this loud woman belt out how much she wants to go home like she was trying out for American Idol, over and over and over…

Luckily, that didn’t last. No, she didn’t die. My doctor came in, checked me over, and when I coughed backed away. That’s always a seal of approval when doctor backs away from a sick patient in a hospital.

He wrote me a script for antibiotics, checked my lungs, and sent me on my way. I think I was in the exam area for no more than 20 minutes. Another nurse came after me, wondering if I was okay, and that I should wait until the doctor discharged me or gave me my paperwork before i left. When I showed her he did just that, she was real shocked.

I still feel like shit, honestly. I’m afraid that this will look bad for me at work. I really need this job right now, as I still have nothing. I need the hours I missed, so hopefully I can pull a shift on Saturday to make up some of the hours, I don’t know.

I’m scouring the papers anyway, just in case.