Balloon Up Your Nose!

It began with a cold, the kind most of us get every winter: headache, congestion, coughing, sneezing, post-nasal drip, and it's gone in seven days no matter what you take to make it end sooner. In our town, a few of us also got nose bleeds. I got six small ones, and then as my symptoms subsided, I got one that lasted an hour and a half. My EMT-trained friends taught me you don't lie on the floor with an ice pack under your neck the way we did as kids. You sit on the couch upright, or lean forward, possibly over the sink, and hold the bridge of your nose tightly for 20 minutes.

I hadn't had a bad nosebleed in years. I'd forgotten how the human head likes to bleed, and how red the blood is. The verbs “gush,” and “spray,” come to mind, as well as the adjective “ginormous” and the noun “clot.” I used up two boxes of tissues.

But then it was over, my cold got better, and I went about my business: bringing in firewood for the stove, not drinking enough water, eating very little kale, and so forth. Two nights later, I woke to a blood-drenched pillow. That was a dreadful mess to clean, but I stopped it myself. The next day, however, the bleeding started again and never ceased. I drove one-handed to the ER, where a nice doc who couldn't have been older than 12 cauterized my nose and then “packed” it, which is what they call the balloon trick.

These balloons look perfectly innocent, although twice as long as a human nose. This is because there are caves in our heads, with room to stuff things in. I should have been forewarned by the doctor's wince as he pushed this item all the way into my orifice. That was bad, but tolerable. Then, as is typical of balloons, there was inflation. A syringe. A tube drooping out of my nostril. And they tape the tube to the side of your face, so you can't pretend something isn't terribly wrong.

I hope you're drinking a glass of water now, and wondering where in the attic your humidifier is stored.

I had a few anxiety attacks, but after 48 hours was allowed to take the thing out myself, had a blissful day, and then, in a public restaurant with a friend, bled all over my dinner salad. Back to the ER. Five days this time. Despair, desperation, homicidal thoughts, abject self-pity.. Extremely kind people took care of me, which was amazing and completely undeserved.

But we think it worked. I haven't seen a drop of blood in a week. The dull all-consuming ache in my sinuses is gone. I'm so grateful I want to cry. The ER bill is going make me actually cry, but I hope I can still be grateful as I pay it down a few dollars a month for the rest of my natural life.