Like Shark Week But Less Awesome.
After we’d taken the kids out – against my better judgement – for buffalo wings, I was ready for Mommy’s Time Where She Tongues A Bottle of Xanax.
So I took a bath.
No, Pranksters, I am not 91 years old. I just happen to like baths. Especially because I can hide in them without having errant crotch parasites popping in and out demanding things.
So there I was, happily scrub-a-dubbing my hairs, getting ready to hack the hairs off my legs, when it happened.
Sniff-sniff, went my nose.
Rub-rub, went my hand, figuring I’d somehow gotten shampoo UP my nostril. (it wouldn’t be the first time)
Bad move, Aunt Becky. Bad, BAD move.
The next thing I knew, a faucet had been switched on and my nose began to pour blood, all over me, my vagina and everything.
Fuck.
I’ve gotten bloody noses since I was a toddler (don’t do cocaine, kids!) so I know the types of bloody noses I get.
1) Mildly irritating, yet goes away in approximately three minutes
B) Should probably require a blood transfusion.
This was the latter of the two.
And I knew that I was stuck – rooted in place. If I dared make a move, I was going to spew blood all over the bathroom, my clean clothes, EVERYTHING. It would be a massacre.
So I sat there, trying to figure out what I could do. I had at my disposal 1 old washcloth and 1 plastic cup (from the kids washing their hairs).
First, I tried to staunch the flow with the washcloth. No way in HELL I wanted to sit in Shark Week water. Within 30 seconds, the cloth was soaked and I was freaking out.
Could I call someone? I was in the bathroom at the very back of the house and the likelihood of someone hearing me was about as great as the likelihood that I will, one day, win a Grammy for my mash-up of “Whoomp, There It Is” and “It’s My Party.” Besides, I knew that hollering would only increase the blood flowing freely from my nose.
I began thrashing around, upset at the unfairness of it all, perhaps pulling a WHY ME, GOD, WHY MEEEEEEE? as I splished and splashed, all histrionic-style. I gave up pretty quickly, because there was no one around to notice my plight.
I was already drenched in my own blood, trying to drain the bathwater as quickly as I could. Frantically, I looked around, spying the cup. Fuck, I thought. FUCK. That’s what I got to work with.
So I put the cup under my nose, tilted my head forward, and tried to breathe through my mouth. I could ride this out. I could do this. I was the brave fucking toaster without the toast or the er.
I don’t know how long I sat there, my blood pooling in the sad cup, but it had to have been awhile. Soon, my bathwater drained and there I sat, shivering, and wet, covered in blood, while my nose continued to do it’s best faucet impression.
Eventually, my nose decided that HEY! Clotting is REALLY cool! and I was able to rinse the blood off myself and exit the shower, a little light-headed, but fine.
I considered donating the blood to some wanna-be vampire (Breaking Cherries Dawn opened this weekend, right?), but decided that I didn’t know enough wanna-be vampires.
Which is sad, really. I could’ve gotten some pretty good cash for it.
OMG. Your life is so fantastically interesting. Only AB can turn a nosebleed into comedy. My life is so boring.
wow… that fucking sucks. I’ve been getting nosebleeds lately and I’m not sure why… as I never got them as a kid… but they are of the 1st variety… I can’t imagine the 2nd.. I’d probably be crying uncontrollably.
Oh you poor girlie! I had “crime scene” nosebleeds last year and was thisclose to a surgical cauterization when they – THANK GOD – stopped! One thing that might help you is that you have to pinch your nose closed as high up as you can without squeezing your bone and lean FORWARD. It sounds counterintuitive, but as it was explained to me the platelets weigh more then the other stuff in your blood and when you tip forward, they sink to the “bottom” and form a clot. Then you have to blow the scab out – GENTLY, SO GENTLY – and hopefully that will be the end of THAT. (And sorry that’s so gross but you know how it is, after you give birth, it’s ALL on the table…..)
Hang in there mama!
Love the crime scene description. Maybe snorting Xanax would help it clot earlier? Not that I’ve tried this…Well, not this exactly…
Dam…
That sucks. Sorry to hear about the blood faucet.
Stock up on vitamin K.
And, No boxing for you, Young Lady.
In the middle of this story, I predicted that one of your family members would walk in and see you laying (lying?) in the bathtub in bloody water — and they would think you had slit your wrists, and hysteria / twenty years of therapy would ensue…
I have the same problem–not nosebleeds–but that every time I get a moment to myself, something ridiculous happens to fuck it up. Sigh.
EWW! I got the nose bleeds all the freaking time when I was about 16, the Dr ended up cauterizing it.
I feel like I just read Twilight erotica.
I just get dried bloody boogers, which I thought were annoying. Yours has me beat.
My darling Aunt Becky, please tell me you pinch your nose just below the boney cartilage part for 10 minutes when you get a nosebleed. Partly because that’s what my days as a nosebleeder has taught me and partly because the thought of a cup of nosebleed blood kinda makes me a little wooz… {thud}
Things could have been worse; crotch bleeding in addition to nose bleeding would be sure need for a transfusion. Sharks would have been all up in your business then!
I had random nose bleeds until I was about 19. My son is also a nose bleed kid. At 13, he is not even phased by it anymore. It’s a scary feeling though – I hope you feel better!
My kid got the most epic nosebleed last month. It lasted 35 minutes and he bled from his EYES. I called the pediatrician, but I did briefly consider a priest, what with all the stigmata taking place in my bathroom.
I’m thinking of starting up a freak show if these bleeds become a more regular occurrence.
my son is prone to nosebleeds, type B’s….. the first one happened to him while he was waking up from a nap and he was 3 freaked the shit out running down the hall (pale white carpet–damn you prior owners) Seriously I don’t know how I stayed calm when I looked down what appeared to be a crime scene of a hall…. he now sleeps with a humidifier all flipping winter, but it keeps the nose bleeds to mostly type 1,… now myself I mostly get to suffer through other kids of freakish bleeding and find myself woozy as well… is it just the THOUGHT of losing “all that blood” or is really about the quanity???. I often wonder…..
#1. I LOVE baths too. And I’m not 91 years old either so you’re totally cool in my book.
#2. That is so completely and totally rude to interrupt a perfectly good Mom Bath (like a great bath only BETTER b/c that alone time is sacred when you have small children) with a nose bleed. Your nose is entirely rude and I vote it should DEFINITELY have a time out.
#3. You poor baby. My husband gets freaking nose bleeds too and it definitely took some getting used to for me who like never gets nose bleeds. You have my sympathies. Especially during a Mom Bath. Thats just HARSH man.
That totally made my tummy go all constricted and uncomfortable.
Which I’m sure is nothing compared to dumping your body juices in what is supposed to be a relaxing tubby time.
And you didn’t scream and tear out of there stark naked.
*slow hand clap*
I would have spread the horror far and wide.
Finally, someone who feels my pain. I get the Type Bs. Never the Type As. Often at work where I then have to sit in the completely stark white “ladies lounge” until the bleeding stops but it will never stop because my bp is rocketing because everything is white and what if I BLEED ON IT. My co-workers are nice, though terrified, and bring me ice for my face while staying as far away as possible.
Once or twice a year I get one in the shower. I think a sudden flood of water is tipping off one side of my head then I swipe my hand across my face and Jack the motherfucking Ripper. Blood all down my face, chest and legs. There has to be some kind of fetish site that would pay for that footage. I live alone. Well, me and a dog and two cats. The dog can never figure out how to help and the cats can’t be bothered. The process of getting rinsed off, out of the tub and dried off enough that I don’t ice up is comical at best.
Someone recently explained the deal with cauterizing to me (I always bleed from the same spot so I think I have a compromised vessel) and I think I might look into that. In the meantime, thanks for the tip, I’m going to put a cup in the bathroom.
I too love my baths. They are cherished time to me. Nice hot tub of water, bath pillow and a good book. Heaven. It’s just plain TRAGIC that it was destroyed by an evil nosebleed! You have my sympathies. I got those ALL. THE. TIME. up until my mid 20’s. If the weather changed quickly, nosebleed. If it was too dry, nosebleed. If it was too hot, nosebleed. If someone looked at me wrong, nosebleed. I hate them with a passion, and I’m really glad I don’t get them as often anymore.
Cauterizing did nothing for me. Didn’t work. Although I have a great memory of my hysterical ear nose & throat doctor demonstrating how to apply Neosporin to the cauterized spot afterwards. Nothing like a grown as man twisting his finger around in his nose to make you smile…
that was supposed to say “grown ass man”
Which sounds like a totally different subject now…