On my 40th Father’s Day I had the time of my life. What a joy ride! Actually it started out great the previous evening when my two youngest kids cooked me dinner and gave me a funny card and a gift card to a great golf store. We played Wii for a couple hours and I really enjoyed it.
At 9:00AM on Father’s Day I was finishing up my morning medications by giving myself a couple of squirts on a nasal spray I use daily to control allergic symptoms. About 10 seconds after I finished spraying it I felt liquid running down my lip. It was blood. Now I haven’t had a nosebleed in my adult life and any new symptom, feeling, or incident that happens to my physical well being freaks me out. So as I rushed to the kitchen and bent over the sink I saw lots of blood. Of course. I grabbed a towel and held my nose for a while. No good. I sat on the floor when I noticed that I was getting lightheaded, as I do every morning, and that blood was running down my throat. I was scared. And I called to my son to come and help me. He was great. He had me sit up and hold my nose while he went online to WebMD to see how to treat a nose bleed. He returned quickly and after applying ice to my face and nose and plugging my nose for ten minute intervals, we got it stopped in about an hour.
He went out after a while and I settled in. My older son called to wish me a happy Father’s Day and I went out on the deck to sit in the sun. In a couple hours the bleeding started up again in earnest. I called my younger son to come and take me to the urgent care center. I was really bleeding. After what seemed an eternity I saw a doctor who inserted a balloon with bandage qualities up my nose and it stopped. I was to keep that in for 24 hours. We went home and tried to relax. My older daughter called to wish me a happy Father’s Day and I told her of my adventures. While talking with her I noticed that when I bent over bright red blood dripped out of my unplugged nostril. I dismissed it but after it happen several times in the next four or five hours I told my son we were headed for the hospital ER. We got there at 8:30PM and got into a room quickly. I had a balloon stuck up one nostril and tissue stuffed up the other. God, was that A sexy look! Finally the doctor came in – well not exactly. Much later in the evening I realized he was a Physician’s Assistant. I’m fine with that. I have been treated by many PA’s and Nurse Practitioners and they are usually skilled and very competent health care providers. I just want to know up front that I’m not being treated by a physician. They’re not interchangeable. But Don (not his real name, of course) was doing okay I thought. At 1:00 AM I was still bleeding into the packing in my nostril. Don brought in something new, HemCom, A military dressing that stops bleeding, and stuck a piece of it in my nose. It worked. After waiting a while I stood up and bent over to see what would happen, There was still blood in my unplugged nostril, so he packed it too. At 1:40AM we went home.
That was my Father’s Day. As for the nosebleed, I followed up with an ENT doctor two long miserable days later. He chemically cauterized the suspected site of the problem and sent me on my way. Twenty-four hours later I was back again with a nosebleed and we did it again. This time another ingredient was added. It been 24 hours since and there’s no blood. No one ever figured out how or why I got the nosebleed.
I know a nosebleed it no big thing. Except to me it was a huge thing. I really believed I was going to die from this. Lately I’ve noticed a few characters on TV shows or the news saying that so and so woke up this morning never knowing it was his last day on earth. I asked myself if that was me. Now my nose and my psyche need time to heal.
P.S. The Lovely M dumped me. C'est la Vie.
