I wanna talk nosebleeds for a minute. I mean who doesn’t right? Riveting stuff. I’d had 2 in my life before now and in the last week I’ve had an extra 3. I was looking forward to catching up on some sleep on my second night in hospital, so after the nurse faffed about for hours, I finally got to sleep at about half 10. My magnesium was low so I had a drip that was due to finish at around half 1. So it started beeping and I woke up and called the nurse to disconnect me.

He came in and did all that, did my observations and it turns out I had another temperature, so he took more blood cultures (I’m not sure why a third set was necessary but ok…) and went to get me some paracetamol and left the obs machine beeping.

I got up and went to the bathroom and blew my nose while I waited.

Rookie error.

2am. Nosebleed hits. Great. So I grab a stash of paper towels and take a seat and wait for my mate to come back with my paracetamol and turn of the damn obs machine that’s still beeping.

Half an hour on I figure he isn’t coming back so I press my buzzer and eventually he reappears and promises to go and get the paracetamol and some ice for my nose. This time he delivers, so that’s nice. I didn’t know you should put ice on a nosebleed but then again I’ve never really had them. He said to put it on my nose and tilt my head back. I didn’t heed his second part because I didn’t want it to run down my throat instead. Come on, man.

So I sit there, holding paper towel and a pillow case full of ice to my nose and googling how to stop nosebleeds.

So I have like no platelets in my blood at the moment, which means my nose bleeds and my blood won’t clot. One of the many good cells that chemo attacks. Plus, they gave me an injection yesterday to stop my blood clotting so that’s not going to help anything.

The nurse popped back after about an hour, shocked that it was still bleeding. I asked him for some more ice. Off he went.

4am. I was getting tired of getting up and getting more paper towel and sitting there with it up to my nose, two hours had passed. Two hours! How much blood is that? It seems like a lot! I was feeling tired.

I think I finally got the knack of pinching my nose in the right way because…

4:19. It. Has. Stopped.

The relief is insane. I can finally get to sleep.

What the hell.

So not much sleep on the second night either. My nurse today is nice though so that’s good. Tonight I might be able to catch up on a few hours.