The Lowdown From My Point Of View

Last Tuesday, I was at a casual dinner with my 19 and 20 year-old cousins who were in town from Charlottesville to visit me. My nose started bleeding slowly at the table, so I layed down for a while with ice on it to stop the bleeding.

We left the restaurant okay, but then when I got home and started showering, my nose started bleeding again, but this time, uncontrollably, as if someone had shot me. Blood was coming out of my nostrils and from my mouth. I began choking on blood as I tried to spit up as much as possible. The cousins and Paul rushed me to the ER at the nearest hospital where I bled profusely like a drive-by victim as I waited to be admitted. I was becoming faint and light-headed. People inside the waiting room were pretending not to notice all the commotion and red mess that surrounded me.

Since nothing was stopping the bleeding, the doctor quickly contacted the ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) doctor who was on-call. He came in, told me he needed to "pack" my nose. That's when the pain began.

With some scalpel, he shoved two small balloons that looked like earplugs all the way up my two nostrils. It hurt so much I began crying. I mean, they were way up there. Then he followed up and "inflated" the balloons which made me cry even hysterically. All he could keep saying was "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

I don't remember much afterwards, only that the nurses pumped me with morphine three or four times. I was moved to the Intensive Care Unit in the morning, and stayed at the hospital unable to eat or drink much. They took me in to get cat scans and MRI's. My parents drove from Charlottesville and my sister took a train from New York to be at my side. On Friday, the doctor came early in the morning, removed the "packing" which hurt coming out, and I was discharged later that afternoon.

I haven't gone through that much pain in such a short period of time. I lost so much blood that they infused me with some and a bag of platelets to stop the bleeding. I was there for a total of four nights, tired, confused, and terrible thirsty.

Moving on with life...