Spring Eve

Monday night's sleep was disturbed by a gushing nosebleed that wouldn't stop for 45 minutes.  We finally staunched the flow and then I woke up in another hour to another outpouring of blood from both nose and mouth.  I thought I was drowning in my own blood!  We made a hasty trip to the ER with me holding the wastebasket under my chin and losing more blood with every bump in the road. I was just sure the staff in the ER would freak out when they saw this senior lady hurrying through the door while leaking red onto her pink nightgown that was barely covered by a black hoodie.  (I do have to add that the hoodie is one of my good ones and has sparkly sequins in the hood itself so I hope that drew attention away from the nightgown and oversized sweat pants.) They tried pressure.  No slow of the flow.  They tried silver nitrate.  Couldn't locate the site due to the blood flow.  They suctioned my nose.  I made them stop that weird torture.  The bleeding subsided and after a reasonable wait, we started making plans to go home.  But wait!  There's more!  Just as we were discussing the paperwork, the red river started to flow again.  This time the doc stopped it by shoving a balloon-shaped gauze tube inside my nose.  He taped the bottom end of the plastic tube to the side of my face.  You can easily entertain yourself for a few seconds by imagining what I looked like.  Don't forget: I was still wearing my sparkly hoodie.  Then we waited and waited and waited.  You can't have any idea what sort of painful torture it is to have a large object stuffed way up your nostril unless you've actually experienced it. Now to top every off, there was construction going on above the ER.  The work sounded as if overly busy surgeons were sawing off limbs and using mallets to pound skulls. Those sounds only added to the instant headache that occurred when the doc finished pushing inches of cotton tubing up my nose. Advice:  make sure you are awake enough when you get up to use the bathroom that you don't randomly stab yourself in the nose.