When we last left our protagonist he had returned from a second trip to the Mayo Clinic ER hoping the nose bleed would stop and he could relax. Alas, no such luck…
OK, enough with the soap opera/third person idiom. The first treatment held for about seven hours before the bleeding resumed. The second treatment lasted maybe an hour and a half and the bleeding was quite profuse.
So much blood was coming out of my left nostril that it went around the septum and into my right nostril. I had blood in my eustachian tubes. An aside…the first year ENT resident seemed dubious when I told him I had blood there. He asked me, “How do you know?” I just said, “Trust me, I know.” He looked in both ears and said, “Wow, never seen blood in the eustachian tubes before.”
I had so much blood running down my throat I could feel clotted blood and had to go to the hospital bathroom while holding paper towels to my face so I could gargle and get the clotted blood out. Actually, before we left for the hospital, my wonderful wife called David Banner (not his real name) in a panic. I could barely speak with all of the blood, but in a moment of real terror I told him I was going to die because a clot would get stuck in my airway.
As two attempts at chemical cauterization had failed, the only option left was to pack the offending nostril. Don’t mean to be glib or crude (or both), but something that is best described, IMO, as a nose tampon was shoved up my left nostril after being soaked in a solution designed to lubricate it and to slow down bleeding. This tampon was also accompanied by a balloon that was inflated once it was in place, which seemed to be in my brain.
As I write this, the infernal device is still in place. The left side of my face is rebelling (I was going to write “revolting” but that’s a given) and was/is in much pain. My ibuprofen moratorium lasted 54 hours, but I had to take two pills (400 mg) at 11:30 PM on Tuesday night. At least the dose was less than the three or four pills I usually take. Of course, the ibuprofen worked and I was able to get four hours sleep.
Besides, when they finally did blood work during my third trip to the ER, my platelet count, PT (Prothrombin Time) and INR level were all normal meaning the bleeding was not a result of too much ibuprofen, although I should probably take less. I had to pass on the Christmas meal with my wonderful wife and her father.
The packing is supposed to be removed early Friday morning. I am not assuming all will be well. It is possible that a vein is the offending article and could have to be cauterized or ligated (tied up or closed off). If that is the case, they might have to re-pack my nose until the vein issue can be addressed.
As I wrote in my last post, I had never really had a nose bleed before. Occasionally I might have had some dried blood on a tissue if I blew my nose in the winter when the air is drier. I don’t ever want a nose bleed again. In that vein (see what I did there), I ordered three humidifiers for the house. (Yes, I mentioned that in the last post.)
Again, on the scale of medical woe a nose bleed, no matter how heavy, is far down from what some of my family members are dealing with now. Still and again, the straw that breaks the camel’s back does not have to be as heavy as the other straws.
#AsTheNoseBleeds