Born Whole

Breathing, the most fundamental function of the human body, has never come easily to me.

My cleft lip and palate meant that I also had an impaired nasal airway and while subsequent rhinoplasty left me with a somewhat less wonky nose, it did little to improve my ability to breathe through it.

As is common with children born with cleft, I developed a habit of breathing through my mouth, and despite numerous attempts in recent years, by yoga instructors, personal trainers, and meditation coaches to teach me to breathe through my nose, I’m still a mouth breather.

For a long time, I didn’t pay much attention to my breath, until about two years ago when three blood clots lodged themselves in my lungs, making it very painful to breathe at all.