SPEAKING ABOUT BLOOD

SPEAKING ABOUT BLOOD
Well, I think I have got the story about wrapped up. I have been sitting in front of the monitor trying to think of whether there are any other incidents worth telling.


The incident wherein I was hemorrhaging and tried to get it stopped is worth relating. However, I cannot present the incident other than as somehow related to everything else that has occurred to me since the fall of the year 2000. If I just sit back and try to imagine myself as some other person reading this blog the conclusion I reach is that this writer is paranoid and delusional. Things like this just do not happen, and if they did all happen, they cannot possibly be related and if they are all related, well, I had it coming to me for not screwing Victoria McDaniel. Here is a little of the story of the hemorrhaging.

I sat in the emergency room waiting area of the River Parishes Hospital in Laplace, Louisiana bleeding into a garbage can for at least, NO LESS THAN, 30 minutes before being seen. At this hour, about 10 p.m., on this particular day, there was one other person in the waiting area with me. The person was a woman, and she was waiting on someone else.

Eventually, I was escorted into the treatment area. I was directed into one of the draped cubicles. The nurse told me to lay down and put my head back. I knew better than to do this as I was bleeding so heavily I could have drowned in my own blood. The doctor, whose name escapes me at the moment, although I recall it may have started with an 'L,' or had an 'L' in it, maybe Lutz, Lum, or Alor [a few weeks ago the name of this doctor popped into my head, but I forgot it again], came in and briefly looked at me and left. I heard him enter the next cubicle and begin a conversation with the patient within. The doctor assured the patient that the bump on his head was just a big zit and that after he lanced it everything would be okay. The doctor made some joke comparing the guy's zit to his brain. I was still bleeding heavily.

The doctor left the cubicle. I sat there waiting my turn. After a while, when it seemed that way too much time had passed, I looked out of the cubicle to see if I could spot this doctor. He was standing over by the nurse's station, chatting and drinking a Diet Doctor Pepper.

I became slightly upset. I had been sitting there, patiently, swallowing my own blood until I was becoming nauseous. I went and stood by the sink in this cubicle and started letting the blood out of my nose rather than swallow it. This was best accomplished jet engine style. Of course, as the blood was coming out fairly heavily, the snorts only a few seconds apart and each snort an amount not less, in my estimation, than two tablespoons, quite a mess was being made. There was blood all over the place, but at least my stomach was settling down.

In hindsight, I wish I would have had a zit.

When the doctor finally did attend to me, he assured me that he may not be able to stop the bleeding. He made a number of comments about admitting me to the hospital. I thought, 'In a pig's ass.' He stuffed a tampon up my nose and I was ready to get out of there. A nurse wanted to check my blood pressure. She explained that they could tell how about how much blood I lost by checking my pressure at rest and then having me stand up. At rest my blood pressure was around 145, elevated because of the stress, I presume. When I stood up it dropped to around 100, according to the nurse. I found this to be a great relief, 100 is a good number. That is, it was a good enough number to ensure that I would not spend another minute in that nut house. I went home and continued to bleed.

I had my wife drive me to the VA in New Orleans. I was becoming paranoid at this point. My experience at River Parishes Hospital was like something out of the Twilight Zone. I continued to bleed, but the flow had lessened considerably. In my estimation it was now down to about a teaspoon every few minutes. I spoke with a doctor at the VA hospital in New Orleans. I am not even going to go into what I told him. However, as far as I can see, it all adds up. This doctor changed the tampon in my nose and the blood flow dropped to just a steady annoying trickle.
The next morning the bleeding continued and I went back to River Parishes Hospital. I forget most of what happened other than my nose being repacked. During my visit, another doctor, supposedly from Metairie, gave me his card. It identified him as a plastic surgeon. There were more comments about admitting me. This was not going to happen at this hospital.

That afternoon or on the afternoon of the next day my wife managed to schedule an appointment with an ENT near East Jefferson General Hospital. I believe that this doctor did not generally confront situations such as my bleeding presented. The waiting room was mostly elderly females with blue hair, blue eyelids, and red lipstick. Romero would have had a field day.

This doctor first sat me in a chair in which he did most of his examinations. He pulled the plug. The deluge began, although not as heavily as it was when I had first walked into River Parishes Hospital. After a little while of fiddling with my nose he asked whether I had any health insurance so that I could be admitted to the hospital. I told him I did not. He led me to a large storage closet in which he had another chair. For some reason, at the time and even now, the chair brings to mind something I once saw in a horror flick. From behind him, out of some varnished birch cabinets, he retrieved a set of tools. He went at my nose. I had the distinct impression that he did not use these particular tools very often. For most of the time he was working on my nose, the expression on his face could accurately be described as OMG, WTF. He unsuccessfully attempted mulptiple times to cauterize the rupture, but I believe the rupture was in a not directly accessible spot. Eventually, he was able to cauterize the rupture. When he was done this doctor seemed very concerned whether I perceived his work as having assisted me. I assured him that he had. The bleeding had now dropped to maybe a drop down the back of my throat every few minutes.

Let me tell you this. This doctor was frightened. But he did the job. I would go back to him. I could, with no remorse, urinate on the doctor at River Parishes Hospital.

I had my wife stop at a convenience store, I think on the corner of Clearview Parkway and West Esplanade. I think it was a Danny & Clyde's. I wanted a soft drink to get the taste of blood out of my mouth and the feeling of it out of my throat. The clerk asked me if I had been painting. All I could do was shake my head back and forth.
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