Who Nose?

Some days, the comedy of errors that is my day to day existence amazes even me.

I've seen a lot of crazy in my day, let me tell you.  But last night's adventure wins for random insanity, hand's down.

It was still early-ish -- about 9 pm -- but we were exhausted and headed up to bed.  The Peanut had long since been asleep.  Since she's been ill, we've been doing very early bedtime for her to try and help her little system fight back against the ick.  Being the parent of a sick child is exhausting, and I could, at this point, safely lay down and sleep for a month.

Or at least it feels that way.

However, something happened on the way to an early bedtime last night.  If it hadn't happened to me, but was some random fictional thing that I saw in a movie, I probably would have sympathized and then simultaneously laughed my ass off.

But it did happen to me.

Our westie, Roxie, was trying to jump up on our bed to lay down while we were reading and get some time with us before she went to her kennel in The Peanut's room to sleep for the night.  She's small for a westie, and a bit of a chunk due to the extra 8-year-old treat love and our lack of walks since my surgery, so she was having trouble making the leap up to our high bed.

So I bent down to help her up...just as she leapt upward with some serious force behind her spring.

And whammo!

Her skull cracked into the bridge of my nose.  And I do mean cracked.  As in completely rang my bell and started a raging nosebleed and swelling to the point that we contemplated a visit to the emergency room just in case it was broken.

Which we decided against last night, given that The Peanut is finally on the mend and exposing her to that much of a germ factory seemed like a bad idea.

So I'm laying there on the bed, with an ice pack on my nose and kleenex shoved up against the bottom of it to staunch any remaining bleeding, trying desperately not to cry because my poor nose couldn't deal with getting any more stuffy just at that moment, thank you very much, and thinking "Why me, universe?  I'm a nice person.  I do good things for people in need and I try my best to be kind and loyal and all the other things I am supposed to be.  Why me?"

I mean, in all honesty, it does feel a bit like the universe has been piling it on a bit thick the last few years between the several deaths in our family, the massive burn on my leg in January, and the multiple cancer scares of late.  It's been a LOT.  Last night's nose injury was really the latest in a long line of last straws, so much so that I felt like I was well and truly going to wig out there for a few minutes before I -- mercifully and through the steady, gentle nudging of my husband -- managed to scrape it together enough to not pull a nutter.

And then I had an epiphany:

There is no answer to that.  It just is what it is.  Accept it and move forward.  Because in the end, it is about continuing to move forward instead of stopping in your tracks and giving up.

Getting to sleep was not easy, but I managed it finally somewhere after 1:00 am.  I have no idea how many nerve endings are in my face, but all of them were angry and firing for a long, long time last night.  My thought as I was drifting off to sleep last night:  "Why would any sane person choose boxing as a career?"  I still have no good answer for that, but I know I won't be trying to get whacked in the nose again any time soon.

Of course, I wasn't exactly trying last night, either.

My nose is slightly swollen this morning, but not overly so.  There is no obvious break, I'm no longer having any nosebleed symptoms, and I can actually put my glasses on my nose without crying out in pain.

I'm taking that as a good sign.

Life moves forward.  As do I.  But I'll be keeping an eye on the dog...


(Photo of Roxie by Christy Hardin Smith.)