I did a trial run….

…into a glass wall. Ouch! But who am I to turn up my (bruised, swollen) nose at lemonade when life hands me lemons?

Backstory: At a Super Tuesday election night party, I was walking (walking, nay, striding forcefully) down a hallway that had a bunch of televisions tuned to the news networks. I remember looking at the crawl on one that said that Mitt Romney won Massachusetts and mused that he better have! I turned my head forward again only just in time to have my gait violently interrupted by aforementioned glass wall, with the old nose taking the brunt of the trauma. [In case you’re wondering, as my roommate did, if there were witnesses, it was just three girls on their way to the ladies’ room, so public humiliation was kept to a minimum].

Anyway, my nose HURTS. It’s swollen. It’s bruised. I see this as good practice.

In the manner of war heroes, I put up a brave front (“no, no, I’m totally fine”) even though I was dying (Ok, ok, Washington cocktail parties aren’t quite like being shot at in a war zone, but it sometimes seems like it). I didn’t actually ice the schnoz until after I got home several hours later. I got two bruises and the bridge swelled up.

Today is Friday. Lessons learned so far: Sunglasses HURT. Swim goggles are uncomfortable for about the first 20 laps and then they HURT. Washing your face HURTS. No one really looks at your nose until you point out that it’s bruised and swollen. Or else they’re just being polite. I’ve had a slight headache for three days.

On Wednesday, I called up Doc’s office. They didn’t think it was broken, but offered to take a look at it. Most importantly, they told me they could still do the surgery even if I’d broken it.

So I’d read that a good homeopathic drug to take for bruising is Arnica Montana, and some doctors recommend it after surgery (haven’t asked Doc about this yet), so I thought I’d give it a try. It is also very difficult to find. A chucklehead pharmacist at the completely useless CVS in Old Town asked if perhaps I was looking for Hannah Montana. I didn’t know they gave out pharmacy degrees at clown college!

I finally found it in the GNC section at the Fox Chase RiteAid, but it’s actually marketed as a backache medication and the Arnica is not as concentrated as it should be for bruising. I bought it anyway, and will keep looking. Very bizarre little tablets: you stick three under your tongue and they dissolve kind of like powdery cotton candy. I took some last night and this morning and my nose seems to be less swollen.

In any case, I'd better get used to it. In other news, I got my pre-surgery information packet from Doc yesterday...More on that--and an amazingly sexist and racist (even for stoical me!) book on noses I found and simply must write about--to come!