"Mum, Am I Going to Die?"

After reading this story, please let me know what physical sensations happened in your body, not thoughts (eg not "I felt uncomfortable", but "I felt sick in my stomach").

"Mum, Am I Going to Die?"

In primary school, my nose seemed to bleed at anything. If I was knocked, it would bleed. If I was hot, it would bleed. If I exercised, it would bleed. If I was stressed it would bleed. If I sneezed, it would bleed. I couldn't do sport or athletics or run. The propensity of my nose bleeding seriously held me back.

My Mum worked at the hospital, and she knew people who knew the best specialists. I went to see an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist. Inside my nose he saw an ulcer that was right over a blood vessel. One of the first things he said was, “I don’t want to cauterise it because that might leave you with a hole between your two nostrils inside your nose and that might make you whistle when you breathe in.” So, he gave me a cream to apply, which we applied daily. But still my nose bled.

At school, I’d try to play football, but if I got knocked, I’d bleed onto my shirt, and I had to stop playing and go to the school sick bay until it stopped bleeding. I was trying to engage with other boys in sporting and in competitive ways, but my body kept saying, “No! Stop!”

I saw the specialist for years with no improvement.

On a hot day, my nose would bleed. If I banged my head, my nose would bleed. If I played any sport, my nose would bleed.

Now I was in year 6. We went to see the specialist again. He was on sabbatical or sick, so a replacement ENT specialist saw me. He took one look at my nose and said, “Oh, why hasn’t this been cauterised years ago? We can do it now if you like?” So, we did.

I can remember the heat of the implement inside my nose, and the smell of burning flesh – mine. It wasn’t pleasant.

But guess what, my nose has hardly every bled since.

Anyway, rewind a month.

It’s Winter. I’ve got a cold, with a runny nose, and I’m sneezing a lot. Mum has given me Aspirin for my cold.

It’s dinner time. I’ve sneezed and my nose started bleeding. I know the drill as I’ve done this hundreds of times. I grab a box of tissues. I go and lie down on my bed. I squeeze my nose and put pressure right above where the ulcer is. 10-minutes goes by and I take the tissue off, but my nose is still bleeding. I grab more tissues and try again. 5-min goes by and usually this is the longest I need to wait for the blood in my nose to clot and it stops bleeding. But no, it’s still bleeding. I wait another 5-min, but still, it’s bleeding, so more tissues. Even though the blood is not coming out the front of my nose, I can feel and taste the blood dripping down my throat. Another 5-min and I think it’s stopped bleeding, but I sneeze. I’ve got quite a pile of bloody tissues by now. So, I go to the kitchen and get a plastic mixing bowl to use as a bin. 

I go back to bed and try to hold my nose again. But I’m feeling tired. My hand is tired from squeezing my nose. So I try holding it with my left hand. After a while I can feel and taste blood trickling down my throat. My nose is completely blocked up and I sneeze again. A huge goop of half clotted blood comes out and lands in the bowl. I carry the bowl to the bathroom where I clean the blood off my face and nose.

I call out to Mum.

I go back to bed. Mum comes in and sees that my nose is still bleeding. She sits beside me and expresses how awful nose bleeds feel. She talks about how blood clots and leaves me.

By now it’s been over an hour since my nose started bleeding. I’m feeling tired. I hadn’t noticed, but I’d switched back to my right hand to hold my nose. My hand is tiring from clamping my nose for so long, so I can’t keep the pressure on. Blood fills the tissues I’m holding to my nose, so I drop it and get some more. 

I think I’m holding my nose, but I’m really just holding my hand to my face. The tissues fill up with blood and are dripping blood into the bowl.

I call out to Mum. She comes in with a glass of water and comforts me again with her comforting voice on and reassures me that the blood will clot soon. 

I had to put the tissues down to drink the water. My nose is blocked from either snot or blood, so I drink it awkwardly in several big sips. A drop of blood drips into the glass of water, so I put it down.

I lean sideways against the wall while laying on my bed. I try to hold my nose. I try to rest, but the blood still slowly drips into the bowl.

I sneeze again, and another glob of half clotted blood comes out and lands in the bowl.

I’ve now been losing blood for about 2 hours. 

I call out to Mum in a weak voice, but she doesn’t come.

I call out again, louder. Mum doesn’t turn up.

I call out again.

She comes in and sits on the bed beside me. She comforts me as before. I start to cry. I blubber that I can’t make it stop bleeding and I feel very tired. She gives me a hug. She gives me some empathy saying it must feel horrible. I like the hug and we stay hugging for a while.

My head feels very lightheaded and faint. I can feel pins and needles in my legs.

I say to Mum, “Am I going to die?”

She pulls away from me in silence and looks at me and the whole situation. Her face goes pale, and her jaw drops in shock. 

In a deeper serious voice she says, “No. You are not.”

She stands up and with a mixture of distain, anger, and urgency she yells, “Alan! We’re going to the hospital!” 

My next memory is feeling cold in the car in my pyjamas. I’m still holding the bowl. In the bowl is a ball of screwed up tissues, and a shallow pool of blood sloshing around the blood clot goops.

I remember walking into at the Emergency Department in my slippers, but my ankles and neck were freezing.

I don’t recall anything after that, but my nose must have stopped bleeding.

The story I tell myself when I have a bloody nose is that I’m weak, but this is not true now.

What are your reactions? Please comment below.