Just Breathe

One of the strange side effects of being tossed through a plate glass window was that I pretty much had a complete medical evaluation of my entire body done over the course of a year. The stack of papers I collected from the hospital due to the initial injury and subsequent surgeries was about 100 pages worth of material. I also have two or three CDs with the raw digital data from both CT scans and my MRI. It’s an amazing amount of material, and an incredible amount of insight into my own body.

Reading through my admission report from the night of November 4th, 2006, I remember reading that the doctor who looked at my initial facial x-ray commented that I had some form of Sinusitis, not related to the injury I had just sustained. Basically my sinuses were severely swollen.

It wasn’t until I got back to Chilliwack that I really started paying attention, but my nose was constantly plugged up, to the point where I found it difficult to breathe at all through it. Obviously that makes sleeping a bit more challenging, since it means breathing through your mouth all night, which leads to a sore throat and a dry mouth. I started using over the counter nasal sprays, which helped a bit but aren’t good for you long term. I then talked to a doctor who prescribed some nasal corticosteriods for me. I used those for about two months, but didn’t find them any more effective really than the over the counter ones. So I gave them up, worried more for the side-effects than what they were helping with.

What’s strange is that my breathing is completely normal in Buenos Aires. My nose is open 100% of the time, so much so that it feels weird to be able to breath so freely through it. I have to assume that I have some kind of allergy going on back in BC, especially in Chilliwack. So I guess I’ll have to get an allergy test when I’m back in BC to see if I can pin point exactly what the cause is.