A hospitable post.

The third of my Critic essays will arrive after I’m fully-awake again. For the moment, I need to write this post so that I’ve a record of the past two days which have been an absolute nightmare but will have a very positive effect on my life. I’m unsure as to how many of these one gets during their life but I’m willing to bet it’s not a phenomenal amount, and therefore they’re worth noting.

For at least the past seven years my nose, which up until yesterday was Roman, arched and bent to the right, has caused me severe breathing problems. Namely, I could only breathe out of one nostril, and then only about three-quarters of the time. To be perfectly honest I hadn’t noticed it until roughly three months ago, but given my gap year has now started properly (namely, I no longer have a CELTA course sucking my soul out through my ear) myself and my mother decided we could get the whole problem fixed and, at the same time, have some cosmetic improvements to my nose made. Namely: straightening it and removing the Romanic bump, which would not be hugely complicated procedures and would certainly make the entire sensor more aesthetically pleasing. Combine that with a procedure called a septoplasty which would clear up my blocked nasal passages as well as the removal of some cartilage pressing against one of the inferior turbines (two bags of air, one in each nostril, which contract and expand to share the work of breathing between the two orifices) in order to free up that airhole. A straightforward operation for a rhinosurgeon at the top of his field.

Through no fault of his, these past 36 hours have been hellish. Arriving at the hospital, acquainting myself with the room, paperwork, anaesthetic, fine. Perfect. Dapper. Then it went downhill like a minecart in a 1920’s silent slapstick comedy, starting with the fact that my nose basically exited the operating theatre a mangled, misshapen mess; if I’d been a celebrity – a well-known albeit tacky one – I’d have been on the cover of every red-logo tabloid in the nation with ‘Botched Nose Job’ arrowed at my face. Because cartilage is elastic, unless every stitch holds the entire septum pings back into place plus taking whatever new links it has to the skin through the stitches with it. We wind up with what I wound up with: a nose slanted upwards with two irregular nostrils. Combine that with a priceless rarity which I managed to get as well: a nosebleed verging on a haemorrhage, necessitating changes of padding every thirty minutes while my nostrils become clogged with blood and mucus. Combine that with agonising pain and painkillers which kick in half an hour too late. The reason for all this, why it didn’t work the first time, was because apparently I must have, while coming round, slapped at my nose and dislodged the stitches – which seems perfectly reasonable, given I remember pressing my nose a few times as it was encased in plaster, which I wasn’t expecting. The other problem was that the cartilage in my nose was so badly damaged beyond the surgeon’s expectations that he physically didn’t have a lot to work with by the time he’d cut the useless parts out, resulting in, yes, more complications.

So I went back to my room (thank heaven for small mercies, at least: insurance covered it, so we could afford to go private) to wait it out. Thankfully - thankfully - both the surgeon and the anaesthetist, once they saw what a state my nose had worked itself into and what obvious discomfort I was in, were prepared to take my nose apart at 10:00pm and rebuild it then and there. Mum had been livid with them all afternoon as she’d thought they had deliberately carved my nose into it’s mangled shape and decided that was satisfactory; nothing could have been further from the truth, as was evident from the surgeon’s reserved yet obviously displeased reaction at how his handiwork had come apart.

So I was knocked out, more work was done, and I spent an enjoyable night cresting the after-effects of the anaesthetic (which I have now decided is the most beautiful substance ever created by humans). However, bearing in mind that my nose had now been broken twice and was held in place by a heavy piece of plaster, I’m already in pain and then the padding to absorb the blood needs to be removed or I’m not going to be able to breathe. Painkillers were administered too late. Two enormous tampon-like cylindrical pads were wrenched out of both nostrils (they had been forced in right around my nasal cavity, and were each fifteen centimetres long) at the same time. Again, for reiteration, dragged out of a broken nose. It was, without a doubt, the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and all hyperbole has been left at the door. While I can’t say it compared to childbirth or a ruptured bowel of whatever else hits a full Ten on the pain scale, I can’t imagine a more futile agony. At least giving birth is rewarded by the knowledge of your child waiting for you on the other side of this new dimension of pain. With this, is was just blanket pain which served no purpose except to make my life almost unbearable until the painkillers finally kicked in half an hour later, at which point I could start speaking again. I understood then why the surgeon hadn’t wanted to use the earlier; I’d been confused, as they are very effective, but such pain should not be expected except in exceptional circumstances, which mine apparently counted as.

The thing is . . . my nose is now perfect. The only bit of it I can see is the tip and nostrils, and those are even and straight and at a good angle. If those are fine, then obviously the rest of it – under the cast – will be fine as well, especially as it’s being kept in place. I can’t breathe through it yet as it’s still clogged up with blood but a few days and it will have clotted. By the end of the month my nose will be more attractive than it was and much better-functioning. It’s just a shame I’ve had to go through such a painful, convoluted process to get here.

 

P.S. This post was written while Gene was doped up to the gills on painkillers, so if he repeats himself or blurs any facts he is very sorry indeed.

A necessary introduction.

The unbelievably pretentious title of this diary is such for three reasons. One is in the sub-heading, so if you missed it cast your eyes upwards about five centimeters, then bring them back down so you can continue reading. Second is the word ‘gentlemanly’ itself. It’s therapeutic, in an archaic way. It’s a member of that elite class of words which are parodied more than they are actually used, like honour, or German. This means it’s a word I’m naturally fond of, one more interesting than the usual and, if used correctly, eye-catching. Notable. I mean, is there any more room for the word ‘gentleman’ in its adverbial sense? No – unless it’s deliberate. And so wilfully using this word helps keep some of its original meaning together, showing it the respect it deserves.

The third reason is the word ‘proposal’, and I had a much easier time choosing this word than the other. As a word, it feels undaunting; it’s intention is not to browbeat or indoctrinate the recipient but simply to offer up a point of view, concisely if possible. It is not a heavy word – formal, certainly, but light. Unless you’re a politician (in which case ‘proposals’ have to be handled as carefully as one would a canister of nerve agent), a proposal, in such a sense, should not be an intimidating thing. You should not be put off by hearing an opinion ‘proposed’. The proposer accepts that he may be rejected and by accepting has put you in the agreeable position of not being afraid to disagree, this then leading to you being much more inclined to listen to him. It’s all very . . . gentlemanly.

And that is what I want for my only ‘proper’ blog. I’ve had a few in the past, including the obligatory LiveJournal, but I’ve never held any real regard for them. They were simply created because that is what teenagers with laptops in their rooms have. Apart from being a fertile breeding ground for juxtaposing the increasing of knowledge with the increasing of narrow-mindedness, and an ideal megaphone to whine into, they are mindlessly counter-productive. People talk about things without bothering to do them, simply because writing about them is more comforting. I am hardly including every blog ever written in this judgment; a number of blogs I consider phenominal, and through knowing the authors I understand how much the outlet is valued. But at the same time, maybe three out of the upward-of-thirty blogs I either frequent or check on occasionally are either of any use or even contain an interesting set of points (whether relevant to me or not). Some careful testing of the waters has revealed this ratio extends to much of the internet, which is disappointing. Blogs such as these are not innocent but in their own way damaging, because you’ve just wasted ten minutes of otherwise-profitable time browsing.

I don’t bear any grudge towards blog culture; the internet is fundamentally anarchic, in that everyone, literally everyone, has a voice with no-one to temper it but themselves. The beauty of the arrangement is you can ignore what you dislike – no-one can rub your face into a monitor while still sitting behind their own. So this begs the question: if I’m highly skeptical about blogs in general, why on earth am I constructing one? For two reasons.

One, I will be laid out through the whole of October following complicated sinus and nasal surgery (yep), and I need somewhere to post my film reviews.

Two, I need a concise place to post thoughts too abstract for my diary (which I prefer to limit to hard fact and feelings I am certain about) and too self-centred for any public forum. I like to call these my ‘musings’, because they aren’t charged with emotion and are often a response to events rather than a proactive opinion. They are simply observations which can be ignored at will (hence, proposal), but I aim to make them worth reading . I’m no philosopher, athough I find myself at least as philosophical as the next teen – the difference being that I haven’t read a book by Camus and therefore consider myself his successor. (I do like Camus, though. Particularly the laid-back way he refused to be pigeonholed.) I just have plenty of time to think about things and would like to preserve the results of that time somewhere. Jerry Holkins has set the standard and reading him has set me thinking in the same way: from a more fundamental viewpoint than usual. Isolate the subject, address them without prejudice, but don’t be cynical. If you see a positive, note a positive. If you see a negative, note a negative. Try to prize yourself away from wishing a foregone conclusion and break things down to their basest level. Do not be mean, and if you wish to give something the benefit of the doubt then do so. And above all, be honest. For example: “I read reviews primarily to be incensed.” There is nothing but honesty in a line which manages to break down and summarise an entire culture. Genius.

A note should be that this, and the next five posts to be, well, posted, are an archiving of posts made elsewhere and therefore refer to events which happened more than two days ago (two days being the maximum amount of time, it appears, for something to be eligible for inclusion in a blog entry). 

And, if you’re reading, please now take yourself to Eternally Under Construction. Apart from being the best blog currently updated, it’s written by my best friend. While it would be nice to have three updates a week rather than two, what she writes is concise and eminently intelligent. A very, very respectable online diary.