Hush Now, Child

I got the worst bloody nose I’ve ever had in my life today, and now my bedroom looks like a set from Dexter.

Handprints everywhere, tissues that were in the box at the time are somehow already damaged, towels are going to have to be bleached or thrown away, a feeling of sub-human shame that no tarp or relationship with a battered single-mom nurse can fix.

There was a point where I was standing with my head out of my bedroom window so as not to stain my floors and bed as I was grasping blindly for any soft paper object to jam up my nostril while blood hemorrhaged from my head-area, and muttered, “I have lost control of my face.”

I say muttered because I tried to talk, but there was a lot of blood dripping down the back of my throat too, so it was more of a rasp than a sentence, I think. Single file line to make out, please. Let me finish the story.

This thing was violent. It was not a “Woops! I’m bleeding.” I can handle a woops-I’m-bleeding. I laugh at a woops-I’m-bleeding. This was a “OHHHH MYYYY GOSSSHHH… YOUUUUU’RE A MOOOOORTAL” kind of gushing, science-defying, is-this-supposed-to-be-going-to-my-brain-but-now-it’s-pouring-out-of-me-instead? kind of nosebleed.

After a lot of blind finagling with my head out my window, I was able to craft a tissue-tampon from stuff sitting on my dresser thick enough to keep things in check, maneuver it up into my nasal cavity, and then recline myself in such a way that all of the blood was forced up into my sinuses or down the hatch.

I tell you all of this because it took twenty five minutes — which is only five minutes past the internet-recommended “oh, you should probably go to the ER because maybe you are dying” limit — for the bleeding to stop, and during that time I self-soothed by humming the “I Dream of Jeannie” themesong.

I couldn’t place it while it was happening, but since I’ve regained head mobility YouTube has confirmed that I turned to a song I know from a lot of childhood TV Land-watching in my moment of grave facial unrest. (Thanks, television!)

I’d say we’re doing okay now, Jesus has taken the wheel re: my blood coagulation, and with a little Windex and some thorough crawling I’ll be back at par and poised for my next crisis by the time the new Jersey Shore comes on at 10. But holy cow, what if that’s my disaster song?

What if I get trapped under an avalanche or my scuba equipment gets caught on some rusty underwater chains or I am abducted by that homeless man who always humps the ground at the Exxon gas station down the road and I reflexively start humming “I Dream of Jeannie”? What if my brain thinks that solves things now?

Who knows? Only time.