How It Feels to be Kicked in the Face (Part 1: How’s My Nose?)

What Happened

I was kicked in the face last night. And I don’t mean figuratively – I mean literally kicked in the face; smack in the middle of my nose. How did it feel? Imagine a big guy’s shin (almost) whappacking on a small girl’s nose – understand now?

It was okay, actually. In the first millisecond. I thought I could just stand up again and continue playing the game. In the next millisecond, I saw blood splattering to my hands and abada (white capoeira pants) from I-had-no-idea-where, until I realized it could only be either from my nose or my mouth. And when I finally felt the blood flowing out of my nose, I thought, sh*t. I had to close my eyes and lie down on the floor, not necessarily because it hurt, but because I didn’t want to see the blood. The sight of blood will send a signal to my brain that I should feel pain and I didn’t want it to get to that. It’s all in the mind sometimes.

While I was lying down, I heard people shouting “air, air” and imagined that they must be stopping them from getting too near me. My head was buzzed but surprisingly, I didn’t pass out. I was just really scared to (a) see the blood and (b) see the reactions in people’s faces when they see my state. Damn, for all I know my nose is fractured and they’d have to rush me to the hospital (but that was just an over reaction)!

After a bit, people were handing me loads of tissue; in all honesty, I didn’t want to touch my nose and wipe it and all because – eww. In that lying down position, I felt it flowing down my throat and I was thinking if I should spit it or just swallow. For a moment I thought, ohmigod I might drown of my blood, please help me up guys! I don’t wanna die! Then somebody asked me if I was okay, and I said, well, it’s still there! I felt that comment relaxed them a bit. 🙂

So Malandro asked me to sit down and feel parts of my nose; left side, right side, top… Is it fine? And I said, I don’t feel anything, it’s just numb, but I don’t think it’s fractured whatsoever. That’s when I realized I’m fine (despite it still bleeding profusely) and I won’t need to get a nose lift or something.

In the end, there was one last thing to worry about: what will I tell mom?!

How It Is Now

Let me give you an update on how it looks like right now first. Last night, I knew it kinda looked like Mr. Potato Head.

And i don’t mean I look like Mr. Potato Head. I mean it looks like him. The whole potato. I felt it had a life of its own and kinda wish it could walk to the hospital by itself for a checkup.

I wished it’ll be better when I woke up at 3pm today, but when I looked at myself in the mirror – oh jesus. Though I could easily take a photo of myself and post it here, I’d rather spare myself from the embarrassment. Everyone in the family who saw me kinda laughed at me – including my dad. He was so sweet this morning, asking, nasipa ka raw? (“I heard you got kicked?”). I was hiding my face but couldn’t resist noticing his smile. Hmm… My parents seem to understand full well they have a crazy child.

To give everyone a better picture of my nose, my sister was very kind to point out that it looks pretty much like the avatar – not the cute one, but this one:

Yup, that’s exactly how it looks like right now. It’s swollen like a bitch. All my weekend plans are now cancelled. I guess it’s just the universe’s way of saying I should stay home this weekend.