One Brick at a Time

This entry will get a little gruesome, so unless you are a doctor or you’re writing a hospital-based horror/drama, you might want to click away.

So, here I am in York Hospital. I’m here for a nosebleed, and when I came in a few hours ago I felt a bit guilty about taking up the nurses’ valuable time. That was then.

I’ve suffered from minor nosebleeds throughout my adult life. They’ve always been pretty minor (albeit bloody regular) and never needed any treatment. About 2-3 weeks ago, though, they took a turn for the worse, and rather than the odd drip of blood, my nose merrily gushed away. The first time it happened I chalked it up to bad luck. The second time it happened I vowed to call the doctor if it happened again. It did, so I went to see my GP. He used some potassium nitrate onna-stick (and didn’t charge me for it, though he was practically cutting his own throat) to give me a wild, stab-in-the-dark cauterisation. When I saw him it wasn’t bleeding so he couldn’t do it accurately. He said to call him again if it happened again and he would refer me to the NT (nose & throat) department at the hospital as they would need to see me while it bled.

Unfortunately, the next time it happened I was in Nottingham and my GP was away; the doctor that was covering couldn’t give me a telephone referral as she hadn’t seen me, and despite the notes on file the rules didn’t allow it.

Today I worked from home as I had an early morning dental appointment. Well, thank goodness I did! At 2.45 without warning, my nose started to bleed again. I called my GP who was just coming back from lunch, and he called the hospital and spoke to the nose specialist, who instructed my GP to send me to the hospital Emergency department.

I was offered an ambulance, but I declined. I drove to the hospital, unpacking and packing my nose with tissue paper every time I hit a traffic light. By the time I got here my bag was quite full of bloody tissue.

I checked in, and after about an hour I saw a nurse. She wasn’t thrilled, as they were extremely busy. Apparently Mondays are busy days for them.

My nose was still bleeding so I was given a pot and a box of tissues, and told to apply pressure in the usual way. This I did, but after about 20 minutes it actually got worse. This is now about 2 hours since the start of the nosebleed.

I sat still, like a good little soldier, and only called for assistance when my vision got a bit blurry. I thought my eyes were watering, but no – the blood, unable to go down my nose, was running through my eye sockets. I’ve now seen the world through rose-tinted specs, and it’s not as pretty as the expression suggests!

By now the nurse had decided that I probably wasn’t a time-waster, after all, and called for a colleague to hold my nose for me. Seriously. This poor student nurse held my nose for a good 20 minutes or so before a doctor arrived. He put a drip in my arm, and explained he was going to insert a nasal tampon to help staunch the flow. I’d used tissue paper to do the same, so I wasn’t too concerned. But when he inserted it – ouch! It was long… Very long. And hard. And wide. And it hurt. A lot!

5 minutes later it was obvious that it’s effectiveness was suspect to say the least, so a specialist nose guy came to see me. I was transferred to the nose department where he removed the tampon (again, ouch!) and was able to give my nostril a bit of a clean. Donning a mole-man-like mining hat with a torch on the front he saw the problem. “It’s a lovely little spurter” he told me. Nice and easy to fix. A colleague came in for a look. “I’m Isabella” she said. “I’m one of the doctors, here.” “I’m Lee,” I replied. “I’m one of the patients.”

Doctor Nose (not his real name) gave me a bit of a clean and applied some anaesthetic to the inside of my nose. He then used the same burny-stuff-onna-stick to cauterise the spurty part of my nose. He then rinsed and repeated.

There was a brief threat to keep me on overnight for observation, but he agreed I could go home about 9pm as long as the bleeding hadn’t come back. It’s now just before 7.00 and all seems well so far, although my trousers, and my new, favourite £55 T-shirt a pretty much ruined, being drenched in blood.

I’m writing this on my iPad in the waiting room, and a nurse is going to get me a sandwich soon, and in 2 hours I should be able to go home.

Hopefully to a nosebleed-free life.

And if you’re reading this, Paul, you can use this in episode three if you like! Just point the casting director my way (I still have my Equity card).

Update
So, around 8.10 the doctor came to say I could go home and she would get a nurse to remove the canula from my arm. Half an hour later a nurse hadn’t arrived, so the doctor came back to remove it, herself. I didn’t realise how long the tubes on these things were! After removing it, she placed a very thick wad of gauze over the hole and taped it on, telling me I could go home.

She left, and I noticed the gauze gradually getting redder. By the time I made it to the nurses’ station the gauze was bright red and I was dripping all over my iPad case (I didn’t want my blood all over the floor where someone could slip on it). I’m a spurter, apparently (stop the sniggering at the back!). Fifteen minutes later I was able to leave. Finally.

Biggest regret of the day? There not being a mirror in the first treatment room. I mean, how often do you get to see yourself bleeding through your eye sockets? So cool!