A rather bloody Sunday

Not for the first time, after a night of disturbed sleep, regrettably without the support of my trusty neck pillow, I had a copious nose bleed at 8.00am on this morning last, which took 20 minutes to stop. As on other occasions, thankfully few and far between, it left me feeling as if I had a hangover, so we ended up not going to church. Just before lunch, I went out for a walk to clear my head, and a second copious bleed started. This one took half an hour to stop, with much applied pressure from my my sister in law retired nurse who is still able to put her skills and experience to good effect.  

She strongly advised a call to A&E, and as a result, I was visited by a mobile paramedic called Luke an hour later, with an array of high tech medical gadgets at his disposal, most of which weren't needed. He decided to took me to the Heath hospital in his car, as my blood pressure as my blood pressure was higher than I've ever recorded it personally. The reception area was so crowded that several people had to sit the floor, despite a steady stream of patients being seeing through triage and into treatment rooms. Impressive, but worrying to be told that this afternoon's average wait time was four and a half hours.

Within twenty minutes I was given several blood tests, then waited three and a half hours to be examined by a medic, which is understandable given that there were fifty odd people waiting at any given time. The doctor who examined me didn’t think that either of the two lesions he could see in my left nostril justified cauterisation, and attributed the bleeds to high blood pressure and my overnight sleeping position misfortune. By this time blood in both nostrils had coagulated and bleeding had stopped, so he discharged me, and I went home by bus to the city centre, then a walk to get some fresh air. 

The long wait, and being unable to change my wound dressing for six hours was, to say the least, an uncomfortable, not a beneficial experience. I was tired and groggy, and still my nose was leaking blood slowly, so I went straight to bed and lay there wondering if worse was to follow in the night, and could I avoid waking up to more bleeding.

I admit to feeling panicky when the nose bleed seemed to difficult to stop, and once I'd seen the numbers on Luke's wizard diagnostic gizmo, I worried about the risk of a stroke. Once I had calmed down, in bed, with a modest meal inside me - I'd missed lunch entirely - I began to reflect on how the clamour of 'survival anxiety', supplanted the habitual impulse to pray in difficult situations. I think I will view some of the 'grumbling Psalms' in a different light as a result of this realisation.. It gives added weight to the need to offer to pray with people when sick or a state of distress. It's what we priests are trained to do, but being on the receiving end of what feels like a life threatening drama offers a different perspective on an everyday human experience. Thank God for hospital chaplaincy in all its forms!