Happy Sunday night from Howdygram headquarters! Sam is unconscious on the sofa and I’m finishing up an online
Wal-Mart order. This time it’s a teeny one … six boxes of Otter Pops Beach Breakers. They come in six excellent flavors — Blue Raspberry, Strawberry, Orange, Lime, Grape and Punch — and they’re sold 20 to a box with a three-box minimum. Incidentally, Beach Breakers are a “sorbet” texture rather than ordinary ice, and they’re my #1 favorite year-round dessert not counting occasional Hostess SnoBalls.
I saw this graphic on Facebook yesterday and thought it would be useful to post it in the Howdygram. This reflects something I actually say all the time! I’ve always been happy to support public education even though I have no children, and I have no problem whatsoever with my property taxes because I live in a sought-after district with award-winning schools.
I want the next generation of Americans to be well-educated. They’ll be our doctors, dentists, researchers, teachers, lawyers, pilots, inventors, nurses, musicians, artists, authors and poets!
I am a housebound and bedridden senior citizen under the care of a hospice. I’ve been lying motionless in a hospital bed 24 hours a day for almost an entire year, staring at the same wall, watching a slow ceiling fan spinning overhead, a constantly-thumping oxygen generator for amusement with a cannula shoved up my nose. Many ailments have affected my life during the last 12 months, including: 1) sepsis; 2) cellulitis in my right leg; 3) advanced diabetes and diabetic neuropathy; 4) advanced arthritis; 5) an incurable urinary tract infection and occasional fevers due to my complete resistance to antibiotics; 6) burning bladder spasms; 7) difficulty breathing and a disappearing voice, thanks to congestive heart failure; 8) skin breakdown and pressure sores; and 9) a frequent battle with heat rash that results in profuse bleeding in various parts of my body that are none of your damn business.
Today’s big issue concerns my oxygen generator and cannula, which is delivering a 24/7 blast of air into my poor nostrils. And even though the generator has a built-in humidifier, for the last several weeks I’ve been experiencing a number of side effects from “forced air,” such as a runny rose and drippy eyeballs (which mirror the symptoms of a spring allergy), deep interior nosebleeds (and pain) coupled with a terrifying, semi-solid nasal discharge reminiscent of the movie
Alien.
Seriously, this shit is EPIC.
To better understand the situation I decided to do an online search, which resulted in an hour’s read of a scholarly paper — “The Effects of Long-term Dry and Humidified Low-flow Oxygen Via Nasal Cannula” — from a 2017 clinical trial in Sao Paolo, Brazil. In a nutshell, the subject was
BOOGERS.
Apparently everything I’m experiencing is weird, frightening and altogether typical. So this morning after my nose ejected semi-human matter, a wad of blood and rock-hard clots as big as my fingernail, I finally started using a product that I ordered a few months ago on the recommendation of a friend: Ayr Saline Nasal Gel with Aloe. This stuff is EXCELLENT! You just remove your cannula, squirt a teeny dab of gel onto the tip of your pinkie and shmear it inside your nostrils four times a day.
Instant relief. My nose doesn’t hurt inside any more, and my Herculean boogers may be subsiding as well.
It’s a miracle!
Mazel tov. You’ve discovered the only blog on earth that writes about Otter Pops, public education and boogers all in one post.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you also for remembering the Alamo once in a while. It’s the right thing to do.
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