Smoke coming from my nose, peripherally.

   I have been having nosebleeds pretty regularly for the past six months or so, and finally decided to go to a specialist a couple of months ago. I had been to an ear, nose and throat doctor a few years back when I suffered from the same thing then, and the doctor had cauterized some blood vessels in my right nostril, which stopped the nosebleeds. That worked for a couple of years.
   I was hesitant at first to go back for this procedure, as I figured that it had not really solved the problem altogether; I also hadn't loved the bedside manner of the doctor that had performed it. Eventually, the nosebleeds became more regular, so I decided to search out a different physician, and made an appointment.
   The new specialist put me at ease with his likable personality, and I felt like we hit it off immediately. We talked about a variety of things, many of which did not include my nose. I enjoyed his company.
   He performed a cauterization, but approximately ten days later the nosebleeds returned, and back I went.
   He seemed a bit surprised to see me again so soon, but back up there he looked, bright light strapped around his forehead like a coal miner heading into my nose. He identified and thoroughly cauterized a small, raised area in my upper right nostril that he felt certain had been the site where the nosebleeds had been emanating from, but I soon got another one, exactly four days and five hours later.
   It's interesting how certain things can make one so precisely aware of time.
   The doctor had told me that if this cauterization didn't work, he would do it the next time with a laser, and when it didn't, I was in his office again.
   He explained what the procedure would entail, showed me on a tongue depressor what the instrument did when it contacted something (it blackened it!), and informed me that I'd smell something like burning flesh. For some reason, that description didn't shock me as much as I feel like it should have as I think about it now. Perhaps it was the beginning of the surreal quality of the entire experience.
   He began, and I immediately got a whiff of, then saw peripherally, that there was quite a bit of smoke coming from my right side. As he continued, he asked an assistant to come in to help him by holding my right nostril up so he could see the area better. It was then that the vapors seemed to increase a lot. I noted this, and he admitted to being surprised by the amount.
   I looked to the face of the assistant to see if her expression transmitted anything about what was happening in front of her, but it revealed nothing that I could positively identify.
   It really was quite a unique experience to see smoke coming from my body, and the fact that my head was tilted up and back to the left, right nostril flared and in my field of vision, made the smoke difficult to see clearly. The event was at the same time hazy, dreamlike and undeniably visceral.
   As I write about it now one week later, I am reminded of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein theorizing about pain and subjectivity. He posited the question of how a person can know for certain that the pain that they feel is their pain, and not another's. I remember being both amused, but also fascinated by the idea when I first read about it.
   My own body's emission of smoke struck me as undeniably real, yet as if it was happening to someone else, too. It felt as if I could have been watching myself, but using someone else's vision.
   How wonderful it would be to have that option regularly.