How do you spell relief?

C-e-p-h-a-l-a-s-p-o-r-i-n.

A headache has been following me around for about three weeks, not a lovely companion at all. It's the kind of headache that makes you want to slit your throat – at least if your head were severed it wouldn't hurt any longer.

A combination of factors eventually made me take a second look at this pain. I was feeling stuffy and congested, I had a post-nasal drip and a couple people asked me if I had a cold. Could it be that my headache was really a sinus infection?

Apparently it could. I called the doctor yesterday to ask if he would please-please-please call in an antibiotic prescription without my coming into the office. The PA did so, but ordered a generic cephalasporin (at four times the price) rather than the usual amoxicillin.

Well, I'm here to tell you it was well worth the money.

My husband thought the headache was stress- or tension-related, as it did abate now and then, and was gone almost all day Saturday when we were away from home. I wasn't staring at a to-do list, I wasn't checking things off the to-do-list, and I wasn't adding to the to-do list. I was just watching the world go by in slow motion, with nothing to can, freeze, pickle or preserve. No watering, no weeding. No laundry, cooking, cleaning. We didn't even pick corn!

But it came back, that headache did. After my daughter and granddaughter both asked (over the phone) if I had a cold, I decided to call in the cavalry.

In the weekend mail yesterday was a $70 debit card – a rebate for the BlackBerry we bought in June when we switched cell phone providers. Making the prescription almost free!

I can rationalize anything. Heh.

Seriously, I'm pretty amazed at how quickly I feel so much better. Good thing, too, since I'm making pickles today. And cleaning. And …