God forbid this kind of thing should ever happen to Pinnochio!
It started a few days ago, uncontrollable bloody noses, two trips to the ER, and now a face that looks like snorkel gear has been surgically implanted.
The clinical name for my new attachment is an air-inflated epistaxis device, which is another name for a nose tampon that blows up like a balloon, with lovely plastic tubing hanging out of your nostril that must be taped across your cheek.
When the ER doctor inserted it I moaned, loudly I’m afraid, and afterwards I whined. It burned, my eyes and jaw now hurt, my head ached and I rapidly developed symptoms of a fierce head cold. Tears pouring out of my eyes, my unpacked nostril closed up and I could only breathe through my mouth. I need chapstick, Vaseline, water, anything!
You must keep this in for 48 hours, he said, and take antibiotics so you don’t get toxic shock syndrome. Oh my. When it began to bleed again three hours later, I headed off to the ENT doctor who told me 48 hours was not sufficient. At least 4 days, maybe 5, he said. Hasn’t he ever heard of toxic shock, I worried? I imagined by day 5 I would have succumbed already.
It’s so easy to let your imagination, and your inner child, take over when you are in pain.
I needed a Cher, “snap out of it” slap, and the ER doctor provided it when he explained that the body has two release valves, kind of like the pressure cooker my mother-in-law introduced to me after I got married (literal, not figurative!). One was in the nose, the other in the brain. He said these bloody noses could be a good thing, because if the valve blew in the brain, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of an air-inflated epistaxis device. I’d be dead.
So I did what my lovely Stephanie always advises when things get tough: Put on your big girl pants and suck it up!!
Thanks, Steph, and by the way, would you be free Friday night? I’m having my snorkel gear removed Friday morning, so I’m sure to need some TLC afterwards. My pants are going to the cleaners.
Link to photo image http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/Debaserness/pinnochio.gif
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