The mystery of Neti

What could they all be thinking about? Of course, nasal irrigation. I'm all over it and, apparently everyone else is too.

After my surgery in March, the nurses insisted that it was essential to a speedy recovery. So every morning and end of the day, they'd enter my room with an oversized plastic basin, a canister of salted water, and a syringe-like device--the whole apparatus for cleansing my sinuses of residue left from surgery and also any residual bacterial infection that may be lodged anywhere else in that area of my head. Not the most pleasant exercise but, hey, if you want to get out of the hospital, you do what they tell you to do.

Only because they insisted that I continue the regimen once leaving the hospital did I enter into the secret universe of the Neti. Different from the mechanical-looking device used in the hospital, the real world offers a nasal irrigation device in beautiful ceramic and soothing colors, e.g., Midnight Purple and Seafoam, known as a Neti Pot. The yogis have used the Neti for centuries but us, Westerners, are just discovering that it can actually do wonders for your mucous membranes...no kidding.

Most of the members of my very small family appear to love me. Despite that, they do find it difficult to embrace my ideas or suggestions especially without the endorsement of a third party. My brother, sister-in-law, and myself are sitting at the Salt Lake City airport waiting for our respective planes when I begin to reveal the mystery of Neti. I'm explaining to my brother, who's getting over the tail-end of a bronchial infection, how you shove the spout of the pot into your nostril, tilt your head, and let the saline solution come out the other nostril--really, it's kind of fascinating to discover that this kind of passage exists in your head! Of course, he's listening skeptically and just about to discredit the whole thing until the complete stranger across from us chimes in.

"Have you ever really gotten used to it?" To which I respond affirmatively.

"I'm still using mine, but it's always been a little awkward." This from a guy who looks like he's been living off the land for most of his life and to whom the secret of Neti was not too difficult to discover (i.e., at his local health food store, his back-to-land group of friends, the most recent yoga journal).

We continue our exchange about the Neti, when Mr. Corporate America sitting a few seats down pipes in, "I can't live without mine. I swear by it." At which point, the three of us engage in an in-depth discussion about the not-so-secret Neti. My brother looks on incredulously wondering if we are plants for some crazy advertising agency. Short of the long, the three-way endorsement was enough to convince him.

I stand by my Neti. It offers hope in an otherwise isolated and cruel world. Forget the obvious health benefits, if nothing else, it brings unlikely strangers together in the airport or brings family members together on otherwise contentious subjects.