I last wrote early in the morning on Tuesday. Later that day, around 10:30am I started bleeding from my nose. Gushing blood. I lost probably a cup or more of blood in a couple of hours. This estimate is approximate because for a while I was going through wads of paper towels before I ended up leaning over a large measuring cup and letting it drip because…. it wasn’t stopping with the pinching. I couldn’t lean my head back at all because I was drowning in the blood.

Luckily our wonderful babysitter was here. She went and got her mom, who is a practical, lovely woman. The mama took me to the hospital. I stayed there by myself. Want to know how you get priority treatment in an ER? Walk in with a large measuring cup full of blood with more blood rapidly falling into it. My ass didn’t hit a waiting room chair. I walked into triage and then into an exam room. No waiting. The lovely doctor tried a few things and ended up shoving something called “rhino rockets” up my nose. Basically balloons that put pressure on the inside of the nostril to stop bleeding. I was there until 3:30ish. I was barely not bleeding at that point, but I had an appointment with my surgeon at 4:15.

I went to the appointment with my surgeon. He took the rhino rockets out, looked around with a scope and declared he couldn’t see why it happened. He put a different kind of packing into one nostril (not both nostrils like at the hospital) and sent me home.

Around 8pm I started bleeding again. I lost 1/2 a cup of blood in the 15 minutes that Noah tried to call an advice nurse and I said, “Fuck it. We are going back to the hospital Right Now.”

Once again I got VIP treatment in the ER. They are sure nice about blood loss.

The new ER doctor said, “I’m calling a surgeon. Now.”

I think I went into surgery around 10:30? I was completely done and dusted and in a room by 12:30.

The surgeon cauterized an artery in my nose. He put a bunch of dissolvable packing in there too to help seal things up.

I was discharged the next morning. I was told I could go around 7:30. Of course that means it took till 10:30.

I’m home. I feel like warmed over shit. This surgery feels more awful than the original septoplasty in many ways. I’m exhausted. I hurt. I think the flu vaccine as I was leaving didn’t help.

I feel completely horrible.

But I now have a roof on the addition to the house. I’m not dead. I still have a future.

And things plug on.