I Felt You Drain the Blood

I've noticed that I tend to do, or at least start, most of my blogging late at night. Why this happens is a mystery to me still. Maybe I'm slowly turning into an owl or maybe I need some stronger sleeping pills.

Late Saturday night, however, I had a little too much excitement going on to be blogging. But let me start the story of my weekend at the beginning.

Wednesday, I was at Minnehaha Falls with a couple of friends. We were heading back to our car when my nose suddenly began to bleed. This was unfortunate because no one in my group had tissues and we were still pretty far off from the main pavilion. I held my nose and managed to stop most of the bleeding long enough for me to get back to pavilion, get some tissues, and clean myself up. After it had stop, I pushed it from my mind and thought nothing of it.

Skip ahead to Friday (Friday, Friday, getting down on Friday!). I had a few friends over for the evening and we were hanging out, playing this really awesome game called "What If." Around 1:30, my nose started bleeding again but this time, blood was gushing out. I'm usually pretty impatient when it comes to nosebleeds so instead of applying pressure like you're supposed to, I just shove tissue up there and let it sit for a while until the bleeding stops. I tried doing that but as soon as I got the tissue wad in my nose, the little piece that was sticking out started turning red and then proceeded to drip. This was my first clue that this was not your typical run of the mill nosebleed. I decided I'd give in and apply pressure to it until it stopped. Finally, after half an hour of holding my nose, the bleeding subsided.

I woke up early the next morning (Read: 1 in the afternoon) and went to water my garden. Upon returning inside, my nose again began to drip blood at an alarming rate. It took me another half an hour to get the bleeding to stop but I really didn't care for that evening, I had a date with the lovely Chelsea Handler.

I left my house and went out to dinner before the show and then we arrived at the Target Center. The show was great. Brad, Josh, and Heather from Chelsea Lately all opened for Chelsea and they were each hilarious. Then it came time for Chelsea to come on and I was pumped. This is one of the pictures I managed to take...

...before my nose started gushing blood AGAIN, which goes to show that even fourth row floor tickets can be nosebleed seats. My friend who I went with didn't have any tissues but she very generously took off her top shirt and let me use it to hold my nose... Thanks, Kristen! Was I about to get up and leave to get tissues or seek medical attention? Fuck no. This is Chelsea goddamn Handler we're talking about! Unfortunately, I bled for about 45 minutes... and just as I finally got it to stop, Chelsea's set was over. She was still hilarious, it just sucked having to spend the whole time holding my nose.

As we left the Target Center, I began to feel a little out of it and light headed, like I was in some sort of fog. We made it to our car and I got home alright but I just didn't feel right the whole time. I got inside and I was feeling really weak. I had some salad left over from lunch so I started by eating that (Obviously spinach will cure whatever's wrong with me... right?!). Not feeling any better, I floated over to the couch and collapsed onto it. Like any normal person, I then proceeded to check my Facebook. My friend Brooke happened to be online and I told her what had happened. She offered to take me to the hospital because, let's be honest, all that blood loss had obviously taken its toll on me.

We go to the hospital and I arrive, feeling like a jackass for having to go to the emergency room at midnight on Saturday for a freakin' series of severe nosebleeds. This feeling was further enhanced when I was put in a room next to a guy who was over dosing on some unknown drug. Needless to say, my problem felt like it wasn't that important.

The doctor looked at my nose and then spoke a word I had hoped I'd never hear from a doctor's mouth: Cauterization. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of cauterization, they basically use either chemicals or heat to burn a bleeding blood vessel closed. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! The doctor grabbed a spray bottle with a long red straw and held my nose back. He then sprayed whatever the fuck was in there up my nose and it felt like tiny little ice shards had penetrated my nasal cavity. My eyes began to water and I was coughing. NOT FUN.

I then find out that that was not, in fact, the actual cauterization but just some numbing spray. Note to medical researchers out there: Find a numbing spray that doesn't hurt. A few minutes later he came back with a silver nitrate stick and the actual cauterization took place. After locating the devious blood vessel that was causing me problems, he took the stick and rubbed it along the inside of my nose. "That's not actually that bad," I said. "I was expec... OH MY GOD MY NOSE IS ON FIRE!!!!" That shit HURTS. Thankfully, there's a solution to the pain of chemical burns... MORE NUMBING NASAL SPRAY!!!!!

They did some blood work and said that everything seemed normal and that I should just go home and rest and I'll be fine. Still feeling light headed and loopy, we returned home. I immediately went to bed and did not wake up until early after noon. I unfortunately still felt like I had smoked some sort of whacky weed so I spent most of the rest of the day sleeping. Finally, after a solid three hour nap, I woke up and felt semi-normal.

Obviously, that was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday but hey, I guess you can't really decide when your body's going to fall apart.

The take home message from this blog is this: Be kind to your nose. Don't do things that may cause it bleed excessively. A good example of an activity to avoid is cocaine usage. That's generally not good for your nostrils, nor the rest of your body for that matter. But also don't pick your nose, stick crayons up there, try using your nose for some type of really weird kinky sex, etc.