I had a very restless night of sleep (which isn't unusual). At four a.m. I felt blood begin to rush from my nose again. I sprinted to the bathroom. Thankfully it stopped after about three minutes. I felt so relieved. My head was still throbbing and I felt a bit nauseous. I climbed back in bed. Within minutes, the bleeding started again. This time it took about ten minutes to stop, but it stopped. I went back to bed with a towel and elevated my pillows hoping to prevent more bleeding. Just as I started to relax, thinking it was over, the blood started gushing like an absolute freak show. I rushed back to the bathroom where I remained for the rest of the morning. Nothing I tried would stop the bleeding. At seven a.m., I called Dr. Raghavan's service and the on-call doctor insisted I have someone drive me to the ER immediately to have my INR checked. I knew Stacey would be awake so I texted her for a ride.
The bleeding was still gushing non-stop at 9 a.m. when we headed to Baptist Urgent Care in Brannon. At that point, I knew things weren't good. What was wrong with my body? Why can't I just get back to normal?
The kind nurse tried and tried to check my INR with the finger prick, but ironically couldn't get enough blood from my fingers. Ha! She finally got a reading of 2.1. It made no sense! My INR is not off the charts for being too thin and I'm bleeding out like this? This is not how it's supposed to happen according to the official coumadin side effects!!! She also checked my H&H level which is your hemoglobin or the amount of blood in your body. It should be between 14 & 16. Mine was reading at 13.6 so bloodloss was not a huge concern yet.
The doctor explained that the only option was to insert something called Rhino Rockets into my nose to stop the bleeding. The process was wretched. As soon as they were inserted the blood poured more heavily from my mouth. Seconds later it had saturated the Rhino Rocket and was bleeding through it. While the doctor was trying to decide what to do with me, I nearly passed out. I completely passed out minutes later. When I came to, I could see the fear in Stacey's eyes. I knew things were pretty bad and hated putting her through this. The doctor had decided that with my dropping blood pressure, and all other things combined, she had to send me on to the ER by ambulance. I was devastated.
By the time I arrived at the hospital, the bleeding had slowed. I was feeling pretty rough...almost detached from myself actually. It was like I was watching everything in a fog or slow motion. They kept me in the ER for a long time on fluids watching my BP before Dr. Spanier finally decided it was too dangerous to let me go home. He admitted me to the care of Dr. Phillips, one of the hospitalists.
I was up in a room on fifth main by five o'clock that evening. I was still bleeding and in quite a bit of pain. They offered an assortment of pain meds but I declined. I just couldn't deal with the extreme itching reaction I have to pain meds on top of how I was feeling. I could get through this. Dr. Spanier had said I would just need to stay overnight for observation, see the ENT, and I would be on my way home. Dr. Phillips stopped in to introduce herself. She seemed a bit flighty and uncertain about a plan for my treatment. I am sure she just hasn't had a chance to review my chart. She said she'll return tomorrow and isn't certain when the ENT will see me.
Oh, I am so confused and tired and just can't deal with doctors that don't know me now. I'm going to believe that today was just a really rough day and tomorrow it will all be better.
