Nobody nose the trouble I see

I’M lying on my back. The laptop is on my chest and I’m typing; it’s not easy because I’m trying to ensure my nose is the highest point of my entire body. Higher, even, than my forehead; which is why I’m on my back.
It’s not hard for my nose to be the highest point of my body at the moment, swaddled in bandages as it is.
It’s a veritable Matterhorn of a nose, or a Mount Fuji . These are particularly apposite analogies, considering the bandages are snowy white. Come to think of it, there are so many of them that my nose is probably the highest point in the whole world. An Everest of a nose.
I had a melanoma. I didn’t know it. I thought it was a freckle. Indeed, it was a freckle until the Australian sun got hold of it and turned it into a parasitic assassin. So they cut it out. I won’t frighten you with the details; let’s just say that repairing my nose has required moving three separate bits of skin from place to place around my body, more stitches than a wedding gown, and lots of blood.
That’s the problem with noses – they have a lot of veins, so they bleed easily. Which is why I have to spend a week on my back doing nothing that requires any exertion. Exertion, you see, will cause my nose to bleed, which could mean I end up looking like Coco the Clown when the bandages comes off, instead of like a gangland villain (the one who lost).
The problem, though, is that there is almost no activity known to science that doesn’t involve straining your nose. Including taking a dump.
Picking up a book, cutting a slice of bread, looking at the floor – all of these make my nose feel like it’s about to explode, which it probably is.
This is what you get for not wearing a hat. They talk about God’s mercy, but I don’t buy it. My wife runs a day-care centre and when the kids forget to wear a hat they get a telling off. No one takes their nose away.
But it’s not easy to wear a hat in the sun if you’re not born to it. Being an ex-Pom I grew up expecting to wear a hat because it was freezing. I never thought I’d have to wear a hat because it was hot.
You never had to in England because the English sky has an ozone layer – a kind of airborne sunscreen that keeps deadly ultraviolet rays at bay. The ozone layer is sadly lacking in Australia, where ultraviolet rays create interesting – but ugly – mutations on human skin. The kind of thing a mad scientist does with flies.
Unfair really. I came here prepared for snake and spider bites, jellyfish stings, ticks, leeches and mosquito-born dengue fever. But I never expected anything more dangerous from the sky than kookaburra poo.
But I can’t complain. I’m one of the lucky ones. 1600 people in Australia die every year because they had a freckle somewhere on their bodies and they said: “Oh, it’s just a freckle.” and went down the pub.
Which I  I would have done if I hadn’t had my wife, five children, sons-in-law, sister, and assorted grandchildren all saying: “Your nose looks weird. You should see a doctor.”
I used to be fond of my nose. It was straight and — I felt – rather regal. But I’m trying not to think about it. It’s only there to smell with and one shouldn’t really take it too seriously. So I’m not. Though what it’s going to look like when the bandages come off, heaven only nose.