If You Have A Stomach For It

I had a strange experience(s) yesterday.

PART 1:

I was sitting at home about 12:40pm, just watching tv, when I felt something liquid running out of my right nostril. I put my finger up to it and pulled it back to see blood.

I quickly went to the bathroom to grab some tissue, leaned over the toilet and quite a bit of blood was dripping out. So I stuffed it with tissue and squeezed my nose.

Now the strange part of this is, I don't think I have ever in my life had a bloody nose. Not once. But I did know some things to do, like squeeze right below the bridge of my nose, which I did for about 10 minutes. Problem is, when I released my nose and took out the tissue, then both nostrils started bleeding!

I stuffed both nostrils with tissue and put an ice pack on my nose to help contract the capillaries inside. I did this until I had a nosecicle, which gave my wife time to google. By this time it had been 50 minutes and it was still bleeding. At 1 hour of nonstop bleeding we texted the Dr. office and they said go to the emergency room. Oh Boy.

PART 2:

So we walked into a standing room only emergency room at our local hospital at 2pm. I walked up to the attendant who checks you in, told her what's going on (while trying to talk through a big hand towel I have over my nose and half my face), and then had to fill out paperwork and answer questions (still hard to do), but it didn't seem to bother her; probably has seen everything.

She then asked me to take a seat and they will call me.

We looked around for a place to sit; nothing open, and then a kind older gentleman saw my plight and offered his seat. I sat down beside a nice young airman who said, "What does the other guy look like?" Yes, he helped lighten me up a little. We talked; all the while I'm still bleeding. 2 hours have passed since it first started. Let's break here - if you're getting squeamish, well, I warned ya.

So, the blood's still flowing, but only problem is, I had no where for the blood to go except, down my back throat. Now this is the part of the story where Google tells me not to swallow blood as it will make you throw up. Well, I looked around, the staff had not given me anything for this problem, so, I swallowed it. And swallowed it, and...well, you get it.

Finally, after over an hour in the waiting room, a nurse comes out and puts a little clip on my nose (which slipped right off), gave me a big barf bag, and said, "Don't swallow any blood, it'll make you throw up. Spit it in here instead." Yes, I gave her a little scowl over my big blood-soaked hand towel as she lead me back. Finally!

PART 3:

I walk through the golden doorway to find a nurse who says we have to weigh you and take your blood pressure(it was high). Then she took a little info from me, and then dropped the bomb - there are no beds open so I'll have to go back in the waiting room until they call me. Oh Fun.

PART 4:

My nice airman friend had saved my seat (yes, he was still waiting to get in), so we sat down, where I proceeded to keep bleeding, pinching, and swallowing. My wife went to get a whole box of tissues since my big hand towel was starting to get soaked, and we proceeded to fill the barf bag with blood-soaked tissues (this might be where I lose some of you). Then I started spitting into the barf bag, more and more as I felt more bleeding going on. (By this time I have discovered that I am, indeed, a true red-blooded American). Now this was all very difficult, as apparently I am the only person bleeding in this standing room only emergency room, families and little kids are looking at me, so I don't want to gross anybody out. Luckily, it had been over 3 hours, so my wife & I (bless her) got very, very good at it. By this time I had swallowed quite a bit of blood, so, you guessed it, I tried to throw up, a few times. Dry heaves only, but by this time the barf bag is starting to fill up. I will not paint a color (or B&W) picture for you here.

PART 5:

There were a couple times where the bleeding had slowed down, and I was able to look around the room and notice people coming and going. By now I felt like I knew some of these people, we had a bond (some of them had been there before me), and I felt sorry for them. But I wasn't sorry for the folks who came in much later, with nothing apparently wrong on the outside, and they all started getting in before me. Let me remind you that I am the only person there for over 2 hours that is showing any blood, in a fully packed emergency room!

Now, I know something about triage - I was a trained emergency response person for a large university. Granted, our triage training was more for catastrophic emergencies, lots of victims and casualties, etc., but I still understand what triage is in a local emergency room. At the time it seemed to me, since I was the only one bleeding in the room, that they might come and get me?! Nope. Even after I started spitting up blood clots, when my wife went and told the attendant what was happening; nothing.

Please don't get me wrong - I am not blaming any of the poor folks in the waiting room. They had come in not feeling well, maybe scared, confused, not knowing what was going on and what to do. They just needed help and understanding, they needed some empathy, and I, for one, was feeling that for them.

PART 6:

By this time we had been waiting 2 hours and 45 minutes. My bleeding had subsided a little, enough to handle it, until, BOOM! Big bleed! Now this whole time I had kept the big hand towel on my face, while squeezing my nose to keep it from rushing out, so now you know where it was going; yup, down the throat. OK, gonna get graphic again.

Now I'm spitting up bloody yuck while yanking out bloody tissue and jamming more into my nostrils (nice, huh?) And like I said, my wife & I had gotten really good at hiding it; I don't think all the other non-bleeding folks in the room even knew what was going on.

Finally, the bleeding slowed down, it was close to 5pm, and my wife said, "You just wanna go home?" Yeah, yeah, I really did. But the attendant said I was next on the list. So we waited; until 5 more non-bleeding late comers went in ahead of me, and I said, that's it.

The bleeding felt like it had stopped, my head was aching and I couldn't breathe since I was all clogged with, well, you know what.

I got up, went into the bathroom, tilted my head back, my upper sinuses released what felt like a blob the size of an orange into my mouth, I spit it into the toilet, (again, too graphic for words here), flushed, walked out to my wife, said, I can breathe now, let's go home. I walked over to the attendant with my big blood-soaked hand towel still on my face, said we were leaving and what do I owe. She said nothing, since I hadn't even seen a Doctor. Duh, I thought. Then she said, "You sure you want to leave with your blood pressure so high?"

OMG! I wanted to yell "THEN YOU SHOULD'VE GOT ME IN THERE!"

But I was polite. I just said, "I'm leaving now."

ADDENDUM:

I'm doing fine now.

Thanks for asking.

Jaggy

1 MORE THING: You already know I had to self diagnose, but I forgot to tell you what I think caused it. the day before I had used an allergy relief nasal spray, Fluticasone Propionate. Of course I did not read the side effects before use - can cause severe, extended nose bleeds. MIC DROP!