My Stupid Weekend Mistake (This Week’s Version – Tarantino Style)

10/14/2007 Update:  Since I keep getting hits from people asking google what to do when they have a bloody nose, I figured I should just do you all the favor and put that first, then, hopefully your nose will stop bleeding, and you’ll still want to read my entire bloody nose experience.

Keep in mind that I am not a doctor, and that this is all second hand information, which was originally given to me by a handful of nurses and medical doctors.  If ever in doubt about a nloody nose that won’t stop bleeding, I recommend that you call 911, or your general physician.

What to do with a bloody nose?

1.  Apply Pressure: Squeeze your nostrils, not the bridge (or top) of your nose.  Literally just squeeze them tight, and keep the pressure on them for a good ten minutes.  This will allow the cut inside of your nose that is bleeding to clot up, and the clot will stop the bleeding.  Keep in mind that the part of the nose (nostrils) that I am taking about is the same place that you would squeeze if you were to blow your nose.
2. Head Steady:  When your nose is bleeding keep your head at a normal level, with a slight lean forward.  DO NOT LEAN YOUR HEAD BACK WHEN YOU HAVE A BLOODY NOSE!!! If you tilt your head back you will be forcing by way of gravity to have the blood go down your throat, into your windpipe, and or stomach.  You want the blood to come out your nose, not your mouth by way of coughing it up and out of your mouth.

That’s about it.  Squeeze the base of your nose at the nostrils, and tilt your head forward.  If your nose keeps bleeding go see an Ear Nose & Throat (ENT) doctor.  They have very thin tools that can enable them to look up and at the inside of your nose, and if need be, cauterize your nose for you to seal the wound.

Now for the actual original post…

WARNING: This post is long, with the slight chance that a severe gross out may occur if this is read. Some scenes are of graphic nature based on real life. This may cause you to gag, and or yak! If you do not want to be subjected to a maybe gross out, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post to find a really good link to indie singer/songwriter Amy Hills myspace page containing simply beautiful songs. Seriously, they are far from yakworthy.

Sunday 3:00PM

We were in the shower, the Cheese was bent over, bumping and grinding, we were having a great time, so we decided to take things to the bedroom. Cheese turned around to give me a kiss and her face turned from happiness to horror, she said, “Oh my God. You’re bleeding again.”

I touched my nose and looked down at my right hand. I was full of blood. This was my third bloody nose in less than 36 hours.

Saturday 6:30AM

It all began early Saturday morning. I woke up slightly before 6:30AM with the need to relieve myself from much of the beer that I finished drinking a mere four and a half hours earlier.

I stumbled out of my bed, when I stepped inside my bathroom I was barely awake, the dimly lit sky was peeking into my bedroom along the sides of my blinds, and I struggled to keep my eyes open.

I closed the door to keep my flow from waking up the Cheese, who I assumed was asleep in the next room, still. It was at this exact moment that I was caught off guard by noise from inside the bathroom. It was my cat, she was busy doing her deed in her litter box.

When she finished I was still going, she wanted to get out of the bathroom, and couldn’t let her out since the door was closed and my foot was holding it shut. She ran around the toilet frantically annoyed by her being stuck in the bathroom.

She distracted me even further with this.

It was at this point that I felt something very uncomfortable up inside my nose. I stuck my right index finger up the right nostral, and picked a beauty of a booger. I came off in one big clump, and was stuck under my closely trimmed fingernail.

I kept peeing while being distracted by my cat frantically running in the bathroom.

Then my nose felt like it was running, as it has been of late due to allergies. So I wiped my nose right to left, and looked down and saw a hand full of red.

I was bleeding from my nose, and it was all my fault – a drunk pick gone wrong, and the sign that if you play with fire too much, you’ll eventually get burned.

I fumbled around looking for tissues, and found a box somewhere in my place. All of this fumbling woke the Cheese up, and she asked what I was doing in the bathroom. When I informed her of my situation she couldn’t believe what I had done to myself, and got up out of bed to see if she could help.

There wasn’t much that she could do at the time, so she went back to bed, and I stopped bleeding within about five minutes. I went back to bed, then Cheese and I laughed at the fact that I picked my nose and it bled – even though it was one solid pick.

Sunday 3:45PM

It was obvious that after I stepped out of the shower with a bloody scruff goat tee, a chest full of blood, nose gushing blood from my right nostral, a tub full of bloody water, and 45 minutes of packing and holding my nose that my bleeding was not going to stop.

This third bloody nose was different. 45 minutes of steady blood flow, much more blood out of the right nostril, it was gushing, my left nostril was bleeding too, and I was coughing up blood clots. We had to get me to the hospital.

But first I had to not be naked, so the Cheese helped me get my bottoms, and shoes on. We called a car service instead of an ambulance, because a) I could get there without lights and sirens, and b) my memory has that ambulances weren’t covered on my insurance, since the only time that I rode in one, I got a bill for a couple hundred dollars.

So I sat shirtless in my jacket on the stoop as we waited for the car service to pull up. We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. We tried calling the car service again to see how much more time we had to wait for a car, and they never picked up the phone.

The Cheese took matters into her own hands, and walked down around the block to a different car service. After nearly five minutes, my mind wanted to just walk to the hospital, the Cheese came walking back up the block – no car.

The car service told her that a car would be around within five minutes to pick us up. We waited another eternity, as I held my nose as tight as could be with bloody red tissues in my hand. After another ten minutes we gave our wait up and went down to the car service to see what was going on.

Cheese went in, and I waited outside. By now I was quite annoyed at the fact that I was bleeding a good amount of blood for an hour, and that we were being lied to about something as lame as a car service’s arrival time. From all this I walked into the car service wanting to chew the head off the guy behind the glass, and when I walked in I saw a short gal in the booth running what has appeared to be a the non existant car service. I couldn’t be angry at her.

“Is that lady a dwarf back there?” I said with an excited smile.

The car service lady was calling on the radio for car #1 and getting no answer, she explained to the Cheese that car #1 already picked us up, which was a big surprise to us.

This entire runaround gave me a bad vibe from this place, and I was expecting that whatever car came to pick us up wouldn’t be a legal car service car, and would be lacking everything of safety, as some of their cars have had in the past.

So I told myself I had to legs, neither of which were bleeding, I should be able to get to the hospital with a 40 or so minute walk.

The idea of walking to the hospital was very foreign to the Cheese, and she told me I couldn’t. This would be one of the only a few small innocent spats that we had with one another due to my being annoyed at my body, her being concerned with me, and us having slight lapses in our usually good comunications.

I then informed her of how the guy that owns the bakery around the corner from me was shot in the face during an alleged failed hit outside of his home, then drove himself to the hospital, and that if he could drive himself to a hospital after being shot in the face, I would definately be able to walk in a straight line to one.

Saturday 6:00PM

Due to our sleeping much of the daylight away on Saturday, the Cheese decided she would pick up dinner supplies at the supermarket while I painted a basement windowsill.

As I was preping the sill for a fresh coat of paint, I was bending over, I felt my nose run, I wiped it twice without thinking anything of it. As I bent over to open the can of paint, I saw that my left hand had two nose width stips of blood on it, and thought “What the heck?” and ran inside my place to jam my right nostril with steril cotton balls.

When the Cheese arrived back she seemed saddened and worried at my nose having begun to bleed a second time in the day. And made me stay sitting while she cooked me a delicious dinner. Mmmmm, good. Then, my nose stopped it’s bloody trail of torture just in time for me to eat this freshly cooked meal.

Sunday 4:20PM

I was walking slightly ahead of the Cheese along 7th Avenue in Park Slope, everyone was getting out of my way because nobody wanted to bump into the guy holding a bunch of bloody tissues over his face when then can easily get out of his way, and when we were across from the Key Food I felt a big blood clot that just had to be spit up. So if you happened to be pushing your stroller along 7th Ave at this time, yes – that was me looking like a prize fighter shooting the coolest spit out of my mouth like pro.

At 4:43PM on the dot I arrived in the walk-in waiting room of the New York Methodist Hospital ER on 6th Street. My nose was bloodied and my body was wet from the rain that began while we walked. I just wanted to see a doctor and get out of there as quickly as possible.

I found the sign-in sheet at NY Methodist to be a big insult to all patients, in that they didn’t ask the basic common question of “Why are you here?”

So I filled out the blanks that they had listed and then wrote “BLOODY NOSE!!!! WON’T STOP!!!” on top of the sheet, got it time stamped, and then slipped in in the opening.

This keen move on my part got me seen within less that five seconds of walking away from the opening. The nurse took my blood pressure, tempurature, and asked how to spell my last name that was chicken scribbled on the paper.

“Follow me” she said.

The nurse allowed the Cheese to follow suit and she ended up sitting us in the “asthma care” seating area, and then handed me some clean gauze pads for my nose.

This asthma care center reminded me of a Hyatt hotel lobby – same faux wood trim and tiled floor. We sat here in these seats figuring I’d be there only a short time until put into a bed. There were three other people sitting in this area as well. Two women, and a man.

The guy seemed to be just a freak, and didn’t seem to have anything wrong with him other than his disire to feel important, even if it is by nurses only ensuring that the only thing wrong with him is his lonelyness – quite sad.

The two women were together, with one sleeping (patient) and the other reading a pile of newspapers (friend). The nurse came out and got the sleeping patient within three minutes of Cheese and I’s arrival, and the lonely guy walked off, we had to be really really soon, or so we thought. Cheese and I were immediately left with only the friend with newspapers to study and keep my mind occupied for the time being.

This lady was wearing black velcro sneakers, while intensely picking her nose, I didn’t warn her that doing such things was how I ended up there. When she was done reading, the lady was kind enough to offer the Cheese and I her newspapers but we both declined simply because we didn’t want to find booger on pages 38 through 77. Nose picker left shortly thereafter, so Cheese and I ended up checking out everyone coming in.

There was the “I don’t want to die lady” who had a seizure, old man who fell outside the hospital while going to visit his wife, sad 84 year old lady who just wanted to go home, injured firefighter, injured police officer, an old man named “Don” who thought he was called a retard by an EMT and said “I’m not retarded, I heard ya” and a man with an allergic reaction to shrimp – this last guy ended up sitting with us.

Besides the patients there was one notable doctor that stood out, it was the hipster doctor. He was oober skinny, with long scruffy hair, a beard, and he just kept posing at the counter not doing anything except his various forms of pose. I began to wonder if I was at Piano Bar and they had redone the inside.

After about an hour of sitting I was coughing up more blood. I knew that this was going to happen and asked Cheese to see if she could get me a bucket to spit into. The nurses there didn’t help her much, and told her to “take one from over there.” So, if she had realy wanted, I’m sure Cheese could have scored some needles and drugs to sell on the street – this was an odd form of security this hospital had.

After nearly three hours of my sitting with my hands clamping my nose, I still felt my nose was bleeding, and hadn’t been given any attention inside the ER other than looks from passing doctors and nurses giving me the look of “he’s faking it.” I gave the service a thumbs down.

During these three hours I coughed up a bunch of blood clots, and was given a “dinner meal” which consisted of a chicken salad sandwich, peach fruit cup, milk, and an apple juice. The chicken sandwich was delish, peach fruit cup was meh, the milk was milk, and the apple juice looked like piss, so I didn’t dare drink that.

Then sometime around 9:30PM Dr. McDreamy came to my rescue. This guy could have easily have been a model, he still could if he wanted to. I mean, he was one really good looking man.

He got me to take off my bloodied tissues, which felt like a relief. My nose wasn’t gushing blood anymore, and the blood had stopped for the most part.

Monday 11:30AM

I just finished filling out all of the paperwork needed for my new Ear Nose & Throat (ENT) doctor (I had my nose cauterized five years ago). The nurse gal called me into the small room, asked me a bunch more questions, and tried desperately not to laugh at me when I told her about my drunk picking.

Then the doctor came in, she asked me more questions. Used a tool to pull my nostrils back, looked up my nose, looked down my throat, and in my ears. Then informed me of various things were going to go up and in my nose.

First, a novacaine type of spray, and then a decongestant spray in each nostril. This felt very uncomfortable since it was going up my nose with air powered force.

Then came out a suction tool, picture the sucker from a dentist office, make it metal, and have that shoved up your nose.

Then the doctor whipped out a really long and thick light with a camera on it. It was way thicker and longer than the one my previous ENT used. I was immediately worried and filled with anxiety.

She informed me that I would need to breathe as she inserted this barbarick tool up my nose, down the cavity behind it, and into what I think was my brain, as well as the roof of my mouth. I asked how much of the near foot long wire would go inside my head, and she said, “All of it, if needed.”

WTF?!?!?

The right nostril was first. I breathed, and while it was definately uncomfortable, I was okay with and during it.

The left was obviously next, and that was awful.

Who would have guessed that my left nostril is much longer, tighter, and much less lubed than my right nostril? Not me.

She jammed what felt like all of it down my nose, and I begged and pleaded for her to stop. I won’t lie, I was screaming during it. She told me to breathe once more in order to get it where it was needed.

In went another breath, and then my hippocampus was lost forever. She killed it.

She looked around inside my head for ten seconds of pure hell, and then yoinked the entire thing out of my nose as she said “all done!”

That was nearly eight inches of cable whipping out of my head, and my immediate reaction was an f-bomb as my hands went tissue in hand to my nose – magically it wasn’t bleeding.

She informed me that my right nostril had a small cut, and that my left nostril had a much bigger cut in it.

That only meant one thing, it was time for some good ole’ fashioned American made cauterizing!!!

In went chemicals on a matchstick, chemicals began reacting, then my nose was burning intensely. Up went the bacetracion, to the point of my nostrils being completely full of it, and I was done.

I was given more follow up directions, a follow up date, then sent off into the sunset.

My teeth and the roof of my mouth felt all weird from the long light thing.

Sunday 9:45PM

Dr. McDreamy looked up my nose, he asked a few questions, and then said that there wasn’t much that he could do. That he couldn’t see anything that needed a cauterization because the hospital doesn’t have the proper tools to look down my nose, and then gave me the option of a) pack my nose, and see an ENT tomorrow, or b) just go without the pain of a packing, hope that my nose didn’t bleed again, and then go see an ENT tomorrow.

I went with the hope over pain, because I’m an optimist, and I don’t like pain.

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AMY HILLS

Here she is: Amy Hills!