If you're squeamish or just don't like blood, you probably shouldn't read this.
It was 2008. March, I believe. I had gone in for surgery to get my turbinates reduced and adenoids & tonsils removed. Don't know what those are? Google them. I had to have these procedures done because I stopped breathing when I slept, which, thankfully, would wake me up - therefore, I just didn't really sleep. That needed to change. The doctor said that it's not uncommon for tonsils to rebleed around 10 days after the procedure, and if they do all we need to do is gargle ice water and it'll stop after a little while. 10 days later, my mum & I were saying to goodnight to each other after watching What Not To Wear together (don't judge). It was about 10:00pm (which was unheard of for her to be up that late back then) when the show ended, and we said goodnight as she headed into her room to go to bed (my dad was already asleep) and I headed into mine to do the same. I got a funny taste in my mouth and felt the urge to spit, which wasn't an uncommon thing post-surgery. So I went into the bathroom and spit in the sink. Blood. Again, not an uncommon thing post-surgery. I started heading back to my room, when the feeling reemerged. So I went to the sink and spit again. And again. And again. Each time solid blood. It came quicker & quicker each time. I finally realized, "Oh hey, I'm probably rebleeding". So I grabbed a Dixie cup to spit into as I went to get my mum. Thankfully, we had just said goodnight 10-15 minutes earlier due to watching TV together, so she was still awake. She came into the bathroom with me as I continued to cough up more and more blood - by this time it wasn't just straight blood, they were blood clots. I can't remember if the gargling ice water happened before or after my mum decided to wake my dad up. The poor guy had just gone to bed a little earlier and took a Lunesta right beforehand cause he had to work the next day, so he was a little out of it. Just a little. Either way, the gargling of ice water commenced. Doesn't sound that bad, right? Let's talk about this : I was on drugs (pain killers), I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, I was in pain, I was coughing up blood clots, and I was enduring stupid cold water in my mouth that was diluted with blood. And I had a really cheesy kids song stuck in my head - though that wasn't as bad. Though the tune was annoying, it was Joshua 1:9 (kids church song version) "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Which, let me tell you, helped a LOT. By this time I had been gargling for around an hour, and I was done. I was so ready to be done. And thankfully, I guess my body was ready to be done as well, because the bleeding had stopped. I laid on the bathroom floor, exhausted, with my parents sitting on both sides of me. I remained this way for about 20 minutes, and then it happened. I started coughing up blood clots again - BIG ones. My dad called the hospital and explained the situation, and they told us to come in to do emergency surgery. Now, here's where things get entertaining (for me at least). As we were getting ready to go, my sisters, Abi and Dewie, came home. They had no idea what was happening, all they saw was mum & ada rushing around the house, dad still loopy from his Lunesta, and mum in task mode trying to get us out the door, and me, laying in the bathroom coughing up blood clots. Poor girls. Ada was trying to get a coat on me as I spat up more blood, but couldn't really manage because he was so loopy, he couldn't figure out how haha. We finally managed to get a coat on me (with my mothers assistance), grab a tub, another supply of ice water, and head out to the hospital. Ada sat in the backseat with me, holding a tub so I could spit my blood clots and gargled ice water into it, as my mum drove as fast as she legally could to the hospital. There's this train trestle on the way there, where the road goes into a good sized dip as you go underneath it . . . that was interesting with one drugged up and one very loopy person in the backseat holding a tub of water/blood. Somehow we managed not to spill, somehow. We finally go to the hospital. My mum swung the car into the emergency room drive up, and ada took me inside. He tripped, however, on one of the tubs full of blood and ice water on the way out, and it managed to spill all over the van floor. Got to the desk where the lady wanted us to fill out paperwork before heading into the emergency room. I remember feeling very impatient and miserable, thinking, "Really? There's a little girl coughing up blood clots and you're having us fill out PAPERWORK?!" It's understandable though. Let's be real, the people at that desk probably get a lot of crap, and really, they're just doing their jobs. I applaud them. Anyways, we finally make it into the emergency room. This is what I remember : It was about 1:15am; there was an old dude in the "room" next to me (divided by a curtain) vomiting violently; they couldn't get my IV in because my veins roll, so they tried my left arm 2-3 times, then my right arm, then, without warning, just stuck it in my left hand (did I mention I'm afraid of needles?); the surgeons eyebrows were really weird; the hospital gown I was wearing didn't inflate; and I was nauseous. Ohhhhh, I was nauseous. They came in to get painkillers and anti-nausea medication into my IV, but it was too late. I had accidentally swallowed a whole bunch of blood and ice water, and that's what I vomited up - a whole lotta blood/clots. Did I mention that I was also afraid of vomiting? I finally got into surgery and it was about 4:00am when I came to. A super cool thing that happened afterwards is that I got to spend the night at the hospital in the department that my daddy works - he's an ICU nurse. I didn't NEED the ICU, mind you. I was fine. But they had an extra room available and my daddy works there, so I got to stay where he works ^.^ I fell asleep that morning laying in a hospital bed, watching Animal Planet, with my dad on the couch beside me (mum had gone home by that point to get a little sleep). The next morning one of my dads favorite coworkers was assigned to my room, so I ended up making a new friend that day. And my daddy was the one who took my IV out and did some other stuffs. That's also the infamous morning in my household when we discovered something about me, but I'll save that story for next week. And that's my story. I didn't gargle anything for years after that. And during all of that, my sisters were at home, cleaning out and trying to de-clog the blood clots from the bathroom sink. They also cleaned out the blood from the carpet in the van, and had very interesting conversations about poop and Playdoh. I'll let them tell you that one though ;] I love my family <3
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