Perpetual Ruminations

Thursday

This is crazy, and not even a good kind of crazy. I had a terrible sinus infection and sour throat about a month ago, which took about two weeks to get over. Only, I never did get completely over the cough and stuffiness. I felt fine, and the cough was minimal, just here and there. My sinuses were pretty clear, but I would get kind of stuffed up from time to time. It seemed more like allergies than anything, so I didn't give it much thought.

The only thing I didn't understand was my nose. I had developed sores inside the nostrils, and they just would not heal up. I, again, figured it was allergies, and thought with some time, it would pass. After all, it's been very wet and humid here all summer. To the point that nothing wants to burn, and we have mushrooms growing in the yard; in the open, not under trees or in shaded areas. I also heard, from different people in different areas around us, that the soybeans and corn are molding in areas, right in the field.

So, with harvest underway, and the beans having this white, fuzzy mold, as well as a rusty colored mold on many of them, it only made sense that this was allergies, lingering now after the cold or whatever I had gotten sick with. Rhonda had also gotten sick at the same time, but she was over it sooner, didn't get as sick, and recovered completely. Again, showing it likely was allergies.

Now, here I am, sick again. An exact repeat of before on top of it. It started the same, feels the same, and it's almost like I just never got over it. But, I know I did, I was feeling fine. And, this time around, it's not as severe, at least not yet. There are guests coming through at work who are coughing, sneezing, and hacking, and there is one person at work who is also sick.

So, I'm sure I have been exposed to this over and over, by guests. But the one that seems to have spread it the most is the person at work. She was sick right before Rhonda and I got sick, had the same symptoms that we picked up, and had also given her virus or what ever she has, to a few other workers in the store. She has never gotten over it. She gets worse and better, but never recovered.

I heard this from her boss, who informed me that she has another outbreak going on in the store, now. So, I assume I caught this from her, again. I was going on very little sleep, and with the harvest and my allergies, I reckon I was run down and prone to infection. Now, I have to try and get over this again, but know also that until the harvest is done and the temperatures drop, I will continue to suffer from the allergies. Also, we live right next to the grain elevator, and I suppose that will have me suffering far into the winter, as they dry the grain and spread the mold spores.

It's funny, in a not so funny way -- I moved here from northern Minnesota, to get to a dryer climate and away from the swamps and molds and fungi they harbor. Now, living in South Dakota, I should be done with swamps and molds and fungi. Instead, we have been having higher humidity, more rain, flooding, and I am surrounded by swamps and slews. I think it's worse here than it was back in Minnesota!

Here's hoping for a dry winter, a nice spring, and a dry summer and fall next year. The kind of weather I had always known when I would be visiting relatives in this area.