Hopeful

It's not a word I use often in the springtime: hopeful. In fact, spring is downright miserable for me most years, with the hay fever a nearly constant presence in my life. When I'm not sniffling and sneezing and grumping around, I'm passed out in a Benadryl coma.

But yesterday I went to visit an allergy specialist and for the first time in my life, I'm hopeful that I might actually be able to spend a spring season conscious and enjoying it. I got a couple of new medications to try (Astelin, an antihistamine nasal spray, and Singular, for both the allergies and the hay fever-related asthma I'm suffering through), but what's really got me jazzed is the sinus rinse.

What you do, basically, is you put warm salty water in the bottle and then squeeze the solution into one nostril and let it drain out the other one. Gross, I know. In fact, really really gross, and I won't let Mr Wonderful watch me do it, because...ewww. But the way I feel afterwards is heavenly. My sinuses feel clear and clean and completely free of any mucus or swelling. If you've ever seen me in the springtime, you'd know that this is nothing short of miraculous. I did it three times yesterday while in the middle of a massive allergy attack and it made me feel immensely better, immediately. It takes a few tries to get the hang of it though, and I wasn't doing a very good job yesterday, so it certainly didn't clear me up totally. But I did it again this morning and managed to use all of the saline solution to clear out my sinuses. And I can BREATHE. In the SPRINGTIME.

I feel like a whole new person.