Malone hasn’t got a cold so please don’t ask

“D o you think it could be psychological?” Yes, Doctor, I think my inability to breathe properly is all in my mind. That’s why I waited 45 minutes in your waiting room because I’m desperate to talk to a man about mucous. It’s just in my head that I was suddenly awoken choking a few days ago, gasping desperately for my next breath.

I have suffered from Rhinitis since I was a teenager; this means I’ve spent my whole life with a packet of Handy Andies stuck up my nose. People ask me every day if I have a cold. Strangers hear me sneeze and tell me “there’s a lot of it going around.” I can’t be bothered to explain that I have a permanent cold all year round (sneezing and runny nose symptoms). With many ailments you just get on with it. You go the first time to the doctors, get a prescription, and then for various reasons you stop taking the symptom-directed medicine,
rarely to return to the doctors, there seems no point – the medicine doesn’t work.

So you get on with it, for years, because, after all, you’re not dying, it’s just annoying. Then one day you wake trying to breathe, confused as your over productive nose has formed a sudden thick barrier over the pharynx. I like breathing. It helps in being a good mother. It also means I’m not dead. Hang on, am I actually a mother…? Was having a child all in my mind too? Did I actually have a phantom pregnancy and I’ve been missing all those parties for years because I couldn’t get a babysitter?!

“I would like to be the alluring vamp in a satin nightie who doesn’t have to go to bed with a loo roll”

Anyway, I would like to carry on breathing. I would like to not have a red nose every day of my life. I would like to not have a discussion with shop keepers and mums at the school gate about how they have a cold too. Mostly, I would like to be the kind of alluring vamp in a satin nightie who doesn’t have to go to bed with a loo roll. Sometimes my boyfriend finds me with it stuck up my nose, blocking the leak as I’ve given up trying to stop the nose running.

No, it’s not psychological, Doctor… I think what he meant to say was “how are you feeling? Are you stressed?” I would have told him I’ve had asthma and Rhinitis for over 20 years and I’ve had enough. I would have told him this, that is, if he really exists, right? Maybe he is all in my mind too. I am a writer, after all. Maybe I’m making this all up because I think nose blowing needs more coverage. It certainly does. Man-size tissues. Anyway, I understand many ailments are due to the mind, perhaps such as stress-induced IBS or migraines, but I’ve never heard of phantom snot!

Illustration: Jake McDonald www.shakeyillustrations.blogspot.com