There's nothing more disorienting than waking up in the morning to find that your nose is gushing blood. This morning I woke from my post-snoozing half-sleep dream to find my nose dripping blood onto my pillow. I immediately leapt from my bed and did an arm-wipe check of my nose. There was definitely blood, a lot of it. What better time for every one of the 30 mini packs of tissues I keep laying around to disappear. After digging an old paper towel from the trash, I plugged up the nose. It continued to bleed at a steady clip for about 10 minutes, soaking about 5-6 tissues with a bucket of blood. Then it stopped. Just like that. There was barely any evidence in my actual nose that this trauma had taken place. Only the trash can full of bloody Kleenex and my constant fear that blood would again start shooting from my schnoz remained.
photo from lunch when my nose started bleeding again
So fearing a brain tumor, I went on WebMD to see what was up. The general information on nose bleeds didn't really give me any reason to worry, but it also didn't give me a definitive answer as to the cause of the blood fountain. Luckily, I have figured it out. Because I have such a super-human body, my immune system and life sustaining capabilities are sometimes too great. My body temporarily lost its focus and produced entirely too much new blood. The solution? Open the flood gates and drain the extra blood. If not, I probably would have exploded, like an over-inflated balloon. I just need to pay more attention to how much blood I'm making.
In related news, my college roommate used to get these gushers on the regular. And last year, about this time, I was out to lunch with co-workers at a job I had just started in CT. We were sitting outside at a picnic table near a little shrimp shack on the water. Awesome day, getting to know my new work friends. Then...BAM...massive nosebleed that wouldn't stop for the duration of the lunch. Try explaining to your new co-workers that it's not from cocaine. Weird.
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