Early last Thursday morning (4:20 AM) my mother (who is 82) called and said she had a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop. She’s on coumadin which is a medication that thins the blood and makes it hard to create clots to heal bruises and wounds. So when her nose bleed wouldn’t stop, she was worried that she would bleed to death. I told her to hang up and call 911 and I would rush over to her house. She lives about 10 minutes away. When I got to her condo the paramedics were just taking her out on the stretcher. She was holding a towel to her nose and it was covered in blood. I got a little worried but the paramedics said she would be fine.

I followed the ambulance to the hospital and joined her in the ER after parking. When I got there they were already getting her vitals and thinking of the first line of action. About an hour into our stay the first doctor came in and said they would be putting basically a sponge in her nose and the pressure the sponge creates as it expands would stop the bleeding. When the doctor put the sponge in it expanded instantly. He left and went to deal with other patients and we watched the sponge soak up the blood. But it didn’t stop. My mom kept dabbing the sponge with a towel and blood continued to soak the towel. About an hour later a different doctor came in and said they just had a shift change. He checked on the progress of the sponge and decided it wasn’t working. He then said he had to consult an ENT to decide what to do next. He left and other people came in and got insurance information, etc. More time passed. Here she is with the sponge in her nose waiting for the doctor to return.

My mother was getting impatient. She wanted the doctors to be taking care of her right away. I tried to make her understand that she wasn’t the only patient in the ER. At this point we’d been there about 3 hours. It was late enough in the morning for me to call some of my siblings and let them know what was going on. In the middle of one of those calls the doctor came back. I hung up and listened to him. He said they were going to put a balloon in her nose to stop the bleeding. They would slide this thing in her nose and then inflate it to a certain level to apply pressure to make the bleeding stop. She would have to keep it in her nose for at least 24 hours. He said he would have to get all the things he needed and he’d be back. He left.

About an hour later he came back with a nurse and the things he needed on a tray. He then explained exactly what he’d be doing and that it was going to hurt. Basically he was going to shove this long green tube in her nose and then inflate it with a syringe. He then pulled out the bloody sponge and the blood was just running out of her nose. Mom braced herself and then he shoved it in her nose. I could feel her pain! He inflated the balloon and got it stable in her nose. Some blood was oozing out the sides for a few minutes but eventually subsided. He said he would be back later to see how it was working. In the meantime I called Kaiser and began working on getting her an appointment for the next day to get the balloon removed. What fun talking to Kaiser and working out an appointment.

Another hour later the doctor came back and checked on the balloon. It was holding and the bleeding had stopped as far as he could see. The doctor had called her primary care physician and her cardiologist to find out about her medication. They took her off the coumadin for 48 hours and gave her a vitamin K to stop the effects of the coumadin. That would help the bleeding stop and the clotting in her nose to begin. After some paperwork signing and a few more medications, they said we could go home. 7 ½ hours after getting in the ER, we left. What a long day!

I got her home and comfortable. Then I dealt with some work issues, went to my house and showered and got a few things and returned to her house. She was fine. I stayed with her until late in the afternoon and then decided to go home. She said she would call if anything happened. I was pretty confident things would be fine. And they were. I got up the next morning and went straight to her house. She was fine. I took her to her appointment and found out she was not going to get the balloon out until Monday. She was not to have any hot liquids or showers for 5 days. I couldn’t take another day off work so I called my brother and he said he would take her on Monday to get the balloon taken out. I was in Charlottesville over the weekend but checked in with her and she was fine the whole weekend. Here she is at her house with the green tube/balloon in her nose. She was not happy with me taking pictures of her.

Yesterday my brother took her to the ENT appointment and she got the tube taken out without issue. For the rest of the week she has to avoid hot liquids and meals and not take a shower or get her hair done. She’s not happy about that. We got her some humidifiers to make the air in her condo more moist. The doctor said it was a combination of things that caused the nose bleed. As you get older the membrane in your nose thins. As the weather has changed she runs the heat a lot and it dries out the air in her condo. And she blew her nose early that morning and caused the nose bleed. So she has to watch out for all of these things in the future. One good thing is the ER doctor told us that the amount of blood she lost was not dangerous at all. That was good to hear.

These ER trips have happened every few years recently. I’m sure as she gets older they will continue. I’m glad I live close enough to her to take care of these things for her. I know she was glad I was there for her. Let’s hope the next ER visit is a LONG time from now.