As I stared at the pool of blood coming from my nose growing larger at my feet, all I could think about was the pain radiating from the left center of my face spreading to my gums. Resetting your sphenoid is not for the faint of heart.
Joy, one of my squad mates, had just shoved her pinky finger up my nose, and with a large *POP, POP, CRACKLE* my nose opened up like a faucet and just poured buckets of crimson out. According to her that was a good sign.
I guess years of taking basketballs, elbows, volleyballs, hands, softballs, and anything else to the face in sports will do that.
Joy explained that the largest ganglion of nerves rests behind the cartilage in your sphenoid, and it needs to be readjusted to reset the nerves in your face when you’ve been hit as many times as I have.
At one point, I felt some blockage in my nose and took a chance and blew it, thinking that there might be some sinus drainage. What came out though was the biggest blood clot to ever come out of me, followed by a waterfall of blood once again.
It took about an hour for the bleeding to stop, and at one point there was a tampon in my nose to staunch the blood flow because I could think of nothing else in that moment.
A tampon. Thank you, Amanda Bynes, and your awkwardness around Channing Tatum in the movie, She’s the Man, for allowing females everywhere to see the dual use of them. I probably would have done something equally as embarrassing with a beautiful man in front of me.
I looked every definition of the word rough, but Kayla snapped a Polaroid picture, forever immortalizing the moment.
Out of fear of the possibility of fainting from light headedness, I could do nothing but just sit there, thankful for such a beautiful friend sitting in front of me telling me that I was doing SO great.
Typical Joy. She would never purposefully inflict pain, but when she does she is so encouraging that it makes you feel like you are going to win a medal for the amount of blood drenching the tile floor below you. Like the paler your face gets from lack of blood the more beautiful you become to her.
Looking at the growing pile of bloody tissues next to me, the smiling, encouraging face of Joy in front of me, and the tampon coming out of my left nostril just inside my peripheral vision, I felt so defeated and realized I needed to wake up.
Maybe it was the lack of blood in my head or the new sensitivity my teeth felt, but I was ready to reach lowest possible energy and just hit the floor from exhaustion.
I was tired. This month I had woken up every morning and my body felt like it was full of lead. It took every ounce of will power in me to move it and peel myself off of my sleeping pad to get dressed for the day. Forget about my plan to work out everyday, I wanted to snooze for the extra two hours after my alarms went off.
But in that moment when Joy popped my sphenoid back, and uncontrolled tears from the unexpected pain welled up in my eyes, I decided no matter how I felt, I would not let myself be defeated.
It has been one of the best months of the Race for me. The Lord is moving in ways I never saw coming. He is showing me He wants to stand next to me and hold me up when I feel like my legs want to give out, my arms do not want to lift from my bed in the morning, or my brain wants to shut itself down.
He is calling me out into His embrace, showing me what it means to rely on His strength alone and to fight, but fight with Him as an ally not as if He is the opposition.
This month in the Philippines, humidity has entered back into my life like a hug from an old, large, sweaty friend you never had any intention of interacting with again. But there he was opening his arms expectantly staring at me. So I will embrace his hug and embrace everything else this beautiful country will throw at me, even if I end up with a tampon in my nose.
