Nose Filter Gone, Working to Get Better

March 2008

 

I was having a great deal of trouble dealing with the smoke in my apartment building. Now that my nose filter had been removed, I could not filter any toxins. I woke up in the night, coughing to the point of choking.

 

I was up and down, facing the verdict that I would not get better. I had days of strength and acceptance, leaning utterly on God, and days of tears, unable to bear the suffering one more moment, let alone the rest of my life. I forced myself to do everything possible to beat the odds. I did breathing exercises daily from a book of yoga I had been using for years, Richard Hittleman’s Yoga. I walked every day. I ordered two books from Amazon.com: Shiatzu: Japanese Pressure Point Massage and Zone Therapy, both of which demonstrate self-administered acupressure techniques for relieving pain. I ordered an e-book of facial exercises from the Internet, and I have used them daily since. They have helped to tone the sagging skin left by the surgery.

 

Having been an Art major in college, I made a bas-relief sculpture of my former nose for the plastic surgeon.  

 

In March, I was infected, again. This time, the infection was a smoky, gray-brown color. I also had the yellow ropey kind. I knew that the smoke in the building was affecting my lungs. I could hardly breathe. I was gagging on cigarette smoke. It was thick in my bedroom, coming through the wall.