Drama, Drama!

I've had nose bleeds almost every morning for about a month now. I sit there and blood drips out of my nose for no reason. I then pinch my nostril with tissue for a few moments and the blood stops.

Last week, the bleeding got worse. I started bleeding in the middle of the day. These took a long time to stop. Three nights ago, I started bleeding about 11 pm and the blood gushed. It was 3 am before the blood ceased.

Last night, my bleeding started about 4:30 pm. Despite my efforts with all the tricks from the internet on how to stop a nose bleed, the blood kept coming, gushing out of both nostrils and down my throat. At midnight, I said to The Man, I am going to Emergency. So he accompanied me.

From the outside, Emergency looked not busy. There were only a few people in the waiting room. I went through triage and registration all within 10 minutes. I even had the composure to size up two very beautiful young women - I couldn't decided if they were prostitutes, actresses, or just trendily dressed, with tied-back big hair and flawless make up to match.

But once I was brought into an examination room, that's when the wait started. I was in the Eyes, Nose, Throat, and Dentistry room. There was a woman from New York with an eye problem waiting in the room with me. The nurse put a nose clip on me and wrapped dressing under my nose.

In the hall sat a security guard, watching over James, who was tied to a stretcher. From inside the room, I heard James yell and scream, muttering incoherent threats at passersby. One minute I could hear the guard and a nurse hovering over James trying to calm him, and the next minute, heavy snoring was coming from the stretcher where James now stretched out, not so quietly.

When the guard took his break, he was replaced by another, who spent his whole time on a cell phone. Beside him hung a board with blue strips and metal clips. The Man said the board was a list of patients and the order in which they should be seen. After a while, I walked up to the board to see what number I was and had the following exchange with the guard:

Guard - Would you mind not looking at the board.

Me - Why?

- The board contains confidential patient information that you shouldn't be looking at.

- Then why is the board just hanging out in the open like that?

- It's for doctors to look at. So would you mind moving away from the board.

I went back into my examination room. From there, I saw The Man saunter up to the same board and stood in front of it. The guard started talking to him. I just knew they were having the same exchange I had earlier.

The woman with the eye problem held a cotton wad to her eye and kept saying she couldn't open her eye and was in excruciating pain. When the nurse came in at one point, they had this exchange:

Woman - Do you have anything I can take to ease the pain in my eye?

Nurse, stopped and thought for a moment - Yes, I have some anesthetic eye drops you can use. Lie back and I'll put them in.

- Will the drops affect my vision?

- What do you mean?

- Will I be able to use my eye? I want to see.

- Can you see now?

- No. But will I later?

- The drops will sting a little and blur your vision. It's temporary.

- Are you a nurse?

Sigh of frustration from the nurse and she takes a deep breath - Yes I am.

The nurse put the drops in the woman's eye. Within seconds, the woman exclaimed - The pain is gone and I can see. I can leave now.

Good thing her boyfriend talked her into staying, because when the anesthetic wore off, she started complaining again.

By the time the doctor came to see me, it was 4:00 am. I had been in Emergency for four hours. I had also stopped bleeding, though my dressing was soaked with blood. The doctor wanted to wait till my nose dried a bit more and ordered some blood work, which took another hour to come back.

The doctor decided it was time to clean me up. In her careful way, she scraped and padded, then pulled out a long, giant glob of congealed blood from my nostril! Then she cauterized the area she thought was the site of the bleeding. My nose immediately started to feel the burn.

She must have tapped the opening to my nostril with the cauterizing stick. The skin there bubbled and burned. Later, that area looked like a piece of grey booger was hanging from my nose. This morning, the wound looks like a mole, like Cindy Crawford's, only higher, right at the entrance to the nostril.

But I am not bleeding now. Though it does feel like someone's punched me in the nose. And I am operating on no sleep. I feel giddy all over.