I didn't really sleep well last Saturday night. That was the last night we were in San Jose. I had a low-level headache and some bad nasal irritation, but I chalked it up to staying on the smoking floor, mold in the carpet, running around all week in an unfamiliar place, whatever.

I slept maybe 4 hours Sunday night. I woke up with a scratchy throat and a runny nose. Monday night I woke up at four am and couldn't get back to sleep, same stuff. During the daytime, I'm drag ass tired, my neck hurts, and I've been unusually stuffed up (unusual for me anyway -- I'm almost always stuffed up because I'm allergic to so many things). Been stuffed up for a week, come to think of it.

Last night I woke up at 5 am and couldn't breathe at all through my right nostril and my head was pounding. I felt really hot, too. My upper right teeth all hurt, and my cheekbone felt exactly like it does the day after you've been hit by someone's fist -- a dull throb. I feel like someone went a half inch behind and one inch below my right eye and cracked a bone inside my head.

I woke up, emailed in sick to work (which probably made my supervisor really happy; he's not yet mailed me back) and took a Dayquil. I'm running a low grade fever (it's around 100 after Dayquil and aspirin; my normal body temperature is about 97 and a half) and I can't feel my upper right teeth. My whole palate is numb. I have a microheadache just behind my right eye. My cheek is swollen. My left nostril is clear as a bell, but when I blow my right one, thick yellow pasty stuff comes out. Nasal spray doesn't clear it up.

Tess went looking online and did some self-diagnosis. I think I have chronic sinusitis. Let's see what that page says:

What are the symptoms of sinusitis? The location of your sinus pain depends on which sinus is affected.

Ok. Everything on the right side of my nose between my scalp and lower jaw is killing me. Real helpful. Let's examine the symptoms.

Headache when you wake up in the morning is typical of a sinus problem.

Head still hurts. Check.

Pain when your forehead over the frontal sinuses is touched may indicate that your frontal sinuses are inflammed.

Nope, no forehead pain. One symptom down...

Infection in the maxillary sinuses can cause your upper jaw and teeth to ache and your cheeks to become tender to the touch.

Every tooth I own in my upper right jaw is killing me. I can't touch my right cheek.

Check.

Since the ethmoid sinuses are near the tear ducts in the corner of the eyes, inflammation of these cavities often causes swelling of the eyelids and tissues around your eyes, and pain between your eyes. Ethmoid inflammation also can cause tenderness when the sides of your nose are touched, a loss of smell, and a stuffy nose.

Sweeling of eyelids and pain near eyes? Vision in my right eye is blurry and when I push gently on my right eyelid (with my eyes closed) I can hear a squishing sound inside my cheekbone. So check and check for those symptoms. Tenderness in nose, check. Loss of smell? Check. Stuffy nose: double check.

Although the sphenoid sinuses are less frequently affected, infection in this area can cause earaches, neck pain, and deep aching at the top of your head.

Nope, no earaches. I have a ringing in my ears, though, and a very deep ache in my head. Half check.

Most people with sinusitis, however, have pain or tenderness in several locations, and their symptoms usually do not clearly indicate which sinuses are inflamed.

So all my sinus cavities are infected with something? Well, that's just fucking great. What else can I look for?

Other symptoms of sinusitis can include:

Fever
Weakness
Tiredness
A cough that may be more severe at night
Runny nose (rhinitis) or nasal congestion

Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.

Super.

Now that I look back on it, I think I know what started it. I recently moved to a new office, and it has windows which open. I think that's really cool. The guy who was there before me (he's been in that office since at least '91) did a lot of handyman-type work with tools and whatnot, and along the walls had really high workbenches which had a backing to them. These backings covered the bottom half of the windows, which don't close quite all the way. Some moisture gets in. I think you can see where this is going.

There's a strange black junk/powder/weird stuff all along the bottom of the windows which had benches in front of them. I guessed it was mold or mildew or something. After all, at least thirteen years of sawdust and normal dust and airborne particulates had fallen behind those benches, where it couldn't be cleaned and where the barely open window has let moist air in. Perfect aerobic breeding ground. So now I have my desk sitting under those windows. That didn't bug me since I'm actually not allergic to mold or mildew.

Last Tuesday I was feeling fine. Right after lunch, I picked up a napkin from the stack that I keep on my side desk (which directly under a window; my regular desk is perpendicular to the wall). I put that stack of napkins there the previous Friday after lunch. When I picked it up, I noticed that it had a fine layer of that black dust on it. I remember all this because at the time I thought it was odd that four days was enough to cause such a large amount of dust, and wondereed about the health effects of the stuff; I wondered if it was getting into my keyboard, should I be washing my hands more, that sort of thing. Anyway, I brushed the dust off and blew my nose.

After I blew my nose, I went into a 20 minute sneezing session. I figured my allergies started acting up so I grabbed the nasal spray I keep with me for times when my allergies get really bad (I can't take antihistamines unless I have the time to sleep it off, so I have to go with a topical cure for my near-constant allergies). So I gave myself a bunch of really deep squirts with the spray. That was dumb. Whatever black junk that was only just inside my nostril had now been sprayed and forcefully inhaled way up into my sinuses.

What followed that afternoon was an eight hour bout of some of the worst congestion and runniness I've ever experienced. Those of you who know me will recognize the gravity of that observation. It ended only when I took a benadryl that night, although then it continued on into the next morning. During the time I was at work, I used up a 5 inch stack of napkins (they're the dense brown paper kind you see in cafeterias) by the time I left early at 4:00. That's three hours. Toward the end when I was running low on paper, I resorted to stuffing the last napkin up my nose in order to staunch the constant dripping. I figured I had enough napkins on hand for a month. At least.

I think what happened is that I got that mildew or mold or whatever it is up into my sinus cavities and it started breeding. Now it's inflamed my sinus membranes and it's festering in there causing pressure to build up. I want it out, like pronto. My doctor can't see me until next Tuesday and said that if I can't hack the pain that I was to call there and ask for the nurse. I can't stand thinking that there's colony of decades old god-knows-what infecting my freakin' head. That mysterious black gunk is reproducing in a dark, moist, warm environment -- which just so happens to be an inch away from my brain. That thought weirds me out something fierce.

I'm going in to work tomorrow no matter how I feel. I'm going to take pictures of the windows, and then take samples from each one. If I had a petri dish and some agar I'd culture whatever that black stuff is, just to see what's infesting my head and causing me pain.

This shit sucks.