When I saw my doctor last week, seventeen days after an operation to fix the inside of my ’10% top worst case’ noses, this taciturn, arrogant and somewhat cold perfectionist with a slight Korean accent was (unusually) smiling from ear to ear.
After examining what I’ve come to think of as the subway system of my face, he pronounced “You are wayyyy ahead of schedule! The nose is eighty to ninety percent healed! Of course sinuses are a little behind.” And then, practically shouting: “Look at that, on the left. You could drive a truck through there!”
I don’t think he’s aware of you, my online cheering squad, sending a tsunami of good wishes. You people are at least partly responsible for this rapid recovery … and I THANK YOU!!!
The funny thing is, at 7:34PM on the day of the ‘dissection’ (he called it that…hello high school biology) I was lying at home in bed, ‘still somewhat loopy’ according to Mr. Green, but sharp enough to notice the time and the fact that, instead of the two little slits I’ve been accustomed to breathing through, my nose felt like it had been replaced by the grill of a 1966 Plymouth Fury. (Having an apparently ‘A’ type personality, the good doctor threw “opening up all eight sinuses” into the bargain.)
The massive inrush of oxygen continues to surprise me and the fact that breathing is so easy has, in moments, actually concerned me - like maybe in his zeal this guy wiped out the filter we’re supposed to have to keep out bugs and leaves.
Of course there’s the issue of the soundtrack to my inner life. Along with that blasted inner-voice, now there’s an element straight out of Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau - my own somewhat noisy, slow and regular deep breathing. Of course I keep hearing old Jacques’ narration in his “I told you so” voice. (“We knew there was a chance we’d run into a school of man-eating piranhas and there they were!”)
So it should come as no surprise that the core of my being is now extrapolating on this novel experience of getting a big breath in without any effort at all, : “Hey, maybe we don’t have to try so hard at every other darn thing!”
Terry, who’s been cutting my hair for the past thirty-five plus years, has often signed off with: “Have fun with it!” a line that’s always irritated me. Naturally I don’t let on but inside I’m all: “FUN with it?? Who are you talking to?? I don’t have time for FUN. And certainly not with my HAIR.”
Well, the humbling inflicted on me by this ‘ordeal’ has a silver lining: I’m grateful to be able to have ‘fun’. I do what I have to do, have as much fun as I can and call it a day. My expectations are way down.
And my gratitude is up.
This may be some kind of secret of life. Thank you so very much for bolstering me along the way. <3 <3 <3 (Click the 'Like' button under this post for a nice surprise.)
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