Blessing of the Week: one good nostril

I started writing this post in my head about a month ago, when I first got this really bad cold.  It lingered for WEEKS, finally waned, and has reared its ugly head again this week. UGH!  I think I may have to actually go to the Dr for this one--something must be up. So really, this topic is my Blessing of the Month, because I have been aware of this blessing (or in need of it!) for at least that long.

It started with allergies--seasonal, I assume, because I did not feel sick, but then just had the runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing, tiredness, that I sometimes get from seasonal allergies.  There must have been trees mating or something.  So actually the nose issues started even before the cold (and I have a suspicion they are linked too).  And let me tell you, I don't usually pay much attention to colds.  Eh, they are life, they are bad for a couple of days, then they go away.  I have never--that I recall--had a cold so bad for so long. 

If there is one thing that really drives me crazy about a cold, it is not being able to breathe through my nose at night.  Esp. when my throat is already scratchy and painful--to wake up in the night because I've been sleeping with my mouth open and it feels like terra cotta in there and my throat is practically on fire with dryness.  UGH!  Even worse is not being able to get back to sleep because of the pain in my throat and the knowledge that my mouth is drying out all over again with every breath, no matter how many glasses of water I just drank.  Impossible to sleep! 

I have devised a way to trick my brain into relaxing and not focusing on the drying-out mouth just long enough to go back to sleep.  And it really says something about my lack of innate survival skills that I did not come up with this solution until I was pushing 40.  I take a small, thin cloth handkerchief and wet it near one side, the wet spot being about the same size as my open mouth.  I make myself comfy on the pillows (likely elevated in the hopes that it will help my sinuses to drain) and then smooth the cloth over my mouth.  The damp will stick to the skin just a little, which helps it stay in place, so if I am on my back I may not even have to hold it.  If I need to hold it, I turn on my side so my hand is comfortable.  The damp cloth REALLY helps the mouth not to dry out!  At the very least it is a placebo, and my brain is very happy for it, and I can fall asleep much more readily.  I mean, I don't care what happens to the cloth/my breathing once I am asleep--just please Dear Lord help me go to sleep!

The praying helps too. : )  Even in my own mind, when I cannot sleep I try to start praying for whomever comes to mind, and will always fall asleep eventually.  And who knows who might have needed the prayers!  My dear Becky was the one who once advised me to try this, saying she figures she'll fall asleep once she prays for the person she was brought awake to be praying for.

(For those of my readers who are not praying folks--it is really eerie to hear stories later about prayer seeming to have a real life impact.  I shared one such story a while back, when I woke up in the night praying for my dear Rosa, who unbeknownst to me was that very night going through an emergency C-section, and she and her husband confirmed later that the times when her baby was most in danger or the situation was otherwise dire, were the times I woke and prayed!  I have heard of other true stories too, of people waking in the night and praying for a specific person half-way around the world from them, only much later to learn that the person's life was in danger at that moment in time.  Gives me the goose-bumps.  God is at work, people, and He is constantly inviting us to join Him in it!)

OK, so I have my coping strategies for the stuffed nose.  But still, there is literally nothing as sweet to me this month as the sweep of air through my own unclogged nostrils.  The stuffedness comes and goes, so sometimes I find myself walking around the house breathing through my mouth, only to close it and realize--my nostrils are open!  Oh, it feels soooooooo goooooooood.  At night, when I am dreading the whole stuffy sleep thing, to try to arrange my head and shoulders ideally for drainage, and then wait patiently--almost expectantly--for one good nostril to open. . . it usually does.  And one, my friends, is enough.  Just one good nostril and I can sleep easily.  Oh, the comfort, of the quiet bliss.

It may seem really silly to some of you that I am going on about breathing through nostrils.  Yes, it is a little silly.  But it is such a Good thing, and something I usually take completely for granted.  Now this past month, being aware throughout the day and night of my nostrils is almost like a parallel with being aware constantly of God being with me, and blessing me.   And me trusting constantly of Him being with me and blessing me. Throughout all this illness, I have only had two nights' sleep of complete stuffiness.  And probably only two or three nights of being completely clear.  Most of this past month I've been working with one nostril, and it is enough.  And enough is wonderful.