When I was in high school, I shattered my nose while playing soccer. I played goalkeeper and when I dove forward for a ball, my opponent tried to run right through me and my face collided with her knee. I came to several moments later and looked down at my hands. My gloves were covered in blood and I realized that something significant had happened to me. I was sure she’d kicked my nose right off my face and I frantically searched the ground for it, screaming “NO!” for all to hear. My teammates looked on in horror as my father, some other parents and our coach hurried over to soothe me.

They held me up as I stumbled off the field, looking back for my tiny pink nose in the mud and grass, but couldn’t find it. I began to cry hysterically. This was the last thing I needed.

On the ride to the hospital, I checked in the car mirror and found my nose still attached, though it was definitely not where it should have been. The doctors confirmed the break and recommended I see a doctor ASAP to have it reset. It was shattered and my septum was split in half. It was a disgusting mess.

My first surgery took place ten days following the break, on October 21, 1992. This surgery was to put the pieces back together. I was told I’d need at least two more to get me back to working order. After what felt like two seconds from when I was put under, I was wheeled to the day surgery recovery room where several others had just emerged from their own operations. The woman next to me kept moaning about her eyes – how they itched so bad, and about how the itching was bad, the itching in her eyes. Could someone help her with the itching? Her eyes itched really bad. She was really uncomfortable on account of the itching, which was in her eyes, didn’t you know? I wanted to kick her ass. I had to go to the bathroom, and the nurse tried to convince me to use the bed pan, but I refused to sit on a bowl and make it through a private moment in a room full of screaming invalids with itchy eyes. I insisted she take me to the bathroom. She hooked my IV to the coat rack and left me to enjoy some privacy. I sat down and promptly fell asleep. I was woken by the nurse and I managed to make it back to the bed where my parents came to visit and laughed as I woozily attempted to eat an orange popsicle, only managing to stab myself in the nose with it each time I tried to drive it towards my mouth.

This surgery fixed me up enough to last a year, when the swelling would have gone down enough to allow them to operate again. I got back on the field with my soccer team after only missing three games. I wasn’t allowed to play without a fancy plastic face mask for protection and this easily drew a lot of attention from opposing players and passers-by.

(The girl in the photo who says I’m going to hell is my high school friend and teammate, Emily. She is the only person in my life who has ever said we could not be friends because I am gay. She holds a special place in my red, bitter heart.)

My second surgery finished up the reconstruction and the two surgeries following were considered “cosmetic” in nature, though that makes it seem like it was more elective than very necessary for my self-esteem and future dating life. The plastic surgeon put my nose back where it belonged and fixed some issues like cartilage in the tip of my nose which was starting to curl to the right and the fact that the bridge of my nose was beginning to collapse. They took cartilage from my septum and made a new bridge, assuring that I’d not have to wear a mask to hide my hideousness like Michael Jackson.

The worst surgical experience was the last one, which was done in my plastic surgeon’s office, among his expensive art and Dale Chihuly glass sculptures. It was a relatively noninvasive and short procedure, so I was only given some medications to knock me out and something to make me “forget.” Well, let me just tell all of you. Those medications are bullshit. I wasn’t asleep when they were pounding gauze into my brain and I certainly haven’t forgotten about it. I also remember them reminding me to breathe which makes me believe that they knew full well that I was awake while they sliced into me and rearranged.

It’s been about 10 years since my last surgery. No one other than me ever notices the fact that my nose is slightly crooked or that I can only breathe out of one nostril at a time. No one cares that I feel like I have a cold all the time because my sinuses are swollen and wrong. But let me tell you, they do care when you greet them at the door with a face mask on and, suddenly, they don’t have anything to tell you about Jehovah or his kingdom.