Post your TMI here

[glatt]

That's not TMI, that's a cool story.

[bbro]

I have actually heard of maggots being good for that kind of thing. I think it was on CSI, though. Didn't believe it really. Cool to know it was true.....although, I don't think I would be able to stand it if a maggot lived in my finger. Kudos to you for sticking it out. I would have taken the bug out and probably lost half my finger!!

I watched it pretty closely to make sure he was doing "his thing" and to see if I needed to intervene... plus the crew kept looking too, along with the guy with the experience. It was neat to watch and feel. If it was not working, I would have gone to the Dr. Made for some interesting breaks.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by bbro

I don't think I would be able to stand it if a maggot lived in my finger. Kudos to you for sticking it out. I would have taken the bug out and probably lost half my finger!!

Seconded.

It probably was neat to watch and feel, but I don't know if I could have got over the Ick! factor. Then again, I might have gone along with it just for the attention (I let people feel the contraceptive implant under my skin for the same reason)

[footfootfoot]

somewhere I came across a site where a guy had documented his untreated brown recluse spider bite. Not much left of his hand...

[wolf]

The maggot thing? I think you just won the TMI contest.

[Tonchi]

I may have mentioned before that I have to take coumadin to prevent blood clots. After so many DVTs and constant pulmonary emboli during the last 15 years, they finally discovered that I have a congenital condition which is the opposite of hemophilia. If you look at me, I clot, so they have to keep me loaded with the blood thinners. This has some unpleasant side effects, like bruising easily or mottled skin, and you have to be especially careful not to have accidents.

One summer morning I woke up with my nose heavily crusted with boogers (allergies) so when I went into the bathroom I grabbed a Kleenex and probed around inside there. Blowing your nose vigorously is a no-no, so I thought I was doing the right thing but I forgot to use Vapo Rub first and OOOOPS! The next thing I knew I had blood running from my hand all the way down my arm. My throat felt like it was filled with hot syrup and I reflexively swallowed. Horrible! I had blood gushing down my face and my throat at the same time, it looked like a broken artery. Cold cloths, pressing against the side of my nose, nothing worked, it even seemed to be getting worse. There I was, wearing nothing but a thin-strapped T-shirt, standing in front of a counter and sink that were covered with blood, staring at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. I was gagging on the blood and had to keep spitting it out, but my mouth immediately filled up again.

Put a towel over my face and ran for the phone and dialed 911. Told the lady I took blood thinners and was having a hemorrhage. That operator was really good, she got my address and my doctor's name and how to find my unit and I ran back to the bathroom with a towel heavy with blood. The sink filled up and I tried to wash some of the blood down the drain but it was coming too fast, the water sloshed on the floor and now there was a slippery floor to deal with. It suddenly occurred to me that the front door was still locked and I didn't have any pants on. OMG. It is impossible to put on a pair of jeans while holding a towel to your face on a slippery floor. Before I even got that done the paramedics were pounding on the door.

I unlocked it and two young guys came rushing in with one of those gurney things and wanted me to lie down and get my vitals taken but with a towel over my mouth I said I couldn't because the blood was running down my throat and I would choke and then proved it by choking. I am running to the sink again with a female paramedic running after me shouting "Don't swallow it!!! Don't swallow it!!!" I am spitting buckets into the sink while she is helping me get into my jeans and a less revealing T while the guys are clearing a path to the front door, the cat is hiding in the bedroom and all the neighbors are lined up to see if somebody died because there is an ambulance on the street. The girl paramedic is telling me to be sure not to let any of it get down my throat because it will curdle in my stomach and make me vomit and we have to prevent that, etc. Then she grabs me around the back of my head and shoves a king-size tampon up my nose before I even see it coming!! This is supposed to help stop the bleeding, but apparently the rupture is way back past my nasal passages because all this accomplishes it now ALL the blood has to be spit out instead of having the towel over my face too. They are adjusting the gurney so I will be sitting up when I realize that I have to tell the momster what happened and why I am not home. I dialed and just blurted out MommaI'mgonnahosptalcanyoucometodahouzeandopenacurtidsandI'mriddysorrybutdebadroomzfullabloodIgoddaawfulnozebleedthanksmom, and they whisked me out the door.

It felt like the Academy Awards. I was sitting up clutching a blanket around me with one hand and holding one of those plastic basins under my chin and trying to say "I'm OK" to all the staring neighbors. The girl medic said "Oh dear, this isn't working," as she took the 4th basin full of blood from me, and then she shoved a SECOND tampon up my nose with the first one. It felt like my nose was going to split. I wonder what they do with all that blood, they must have something with a lid on it in the ambulance.

They rushed me into the ER and into a little exam room and I am trying to explain that I have filled up this basin with the blood I am spitting out and they better get me a new one but they are so short handed that nobody is paying attention. I just pointed to one I saw on the counter and sputtered "Gimmedat!!", so somebody finally did. When they were taking my insurance info somebody told me that there was only one doctor but she would put a priority on my chart because they could not stop the hemorrhage. To make the nightmare shorter, the doctor never came. I filled up 3 more basins, which were stacked around this little room because nobody could stop long enough to do something, and after about an hour and a half I managed to get a nurse to find out what was holding up the doctor. She said he was still tied up and I asked her what happened to my priority status and pointed to the basins. She goes rushing out and I heard her gasping to somebody "Where is Dr. ____, what is he doing? There's a girl bleeding to death in there!" Another nurse came in and I said "I'm really sleepy..." and passed out with the basin under my chin.

That finally got the doctor to see me, but he acted like he was not the least bit interested and that I was spoiling his day. They got the tampaxes out of my nose and cleaned up my face and hair from all the blood and stuck something with a light on it up there to see why the blood wouldn't stop. I was pronounced to have "a fisure opened in a blood vessel high up in the open area behind the nasal passages". At this point I had been hemorrhaging for hours and was very weak, so they were pretty much treating me like a rag doll. Doctor Dearest said, "The only way we can stop this is to use a Rhino, otherwise we will have to take you to surgery." Then he stuck something plastic up my poor abused nose, WAY up it, I could swear he touched the brain, and cranked on it to expand it. It felt like somebody hammered in a brick, that good, but amazingly the blood slowed and then stopped. Then they piled a bunch of blankets on me and told me to sleep if I wanted to because I was going to be there all afternoon while they checked my vitals to be sure I was recovering alright. I heard somebody say "How much blood did she loose?" and somebody answered, "I don't know, but at least 3 units here." And then I went to sleep.

I woke up about 3 hours later. It was like I couldn't see any colors, very strange. The momster had arrived at the hospital and was waiting to see if I could be released. A nurse told me that my blood tests had come back and the coagulation reading (Protime) was more than 4 times what my normal rate was; nobody could explain why it had soared out of control because I had not taken or eaten anything which could explain it. They finally checked me out around 5pm, they said if I wanted I could stay in the hospital overnight to be sure but I said No way. So they were trying to give me instructions about coming back to be checked the next day and that I would have to keep this rhino thingey in for a week and then have it removed by my own doctor and to stop taking the coumadin until further notice.

When I got home, the house looked like nothing had even happened. The momster said it had looked like the Mansons had been there. She had cleaned everything up, bless her, the kitchen sink and floor was even splattered from when I was trying to make the phone calls. The cat didn't come out of hiding until after dinner. When I could get up the nerve, I looked at myself in a mirror and it was quite a spectacle. The right side of my face looked like Rocky Balboa after a match, dried blood and purplish from having that Rhino stuffed up there. I guess they call it that because it is the shape of the horn on said zoo animal and almost as big. I had a string hanging from the Rhino, of which all I could see was the white end of the plug, and they folded that back and put a big piece of tape over it so you don't walk around with a string hanging out of your nose and look any dumber than you do already.

After a week, I went back and had the thing removed, and I don't believe that before then I had ever seen anything so gross. It lay there on the examination table, HUGE and obscene looking, covered with mucus and with a foot-long liver-colored blood clot which had been hanging off the back end of it and down my throat. My doctor said, "Now we aren't going to do this anymore, are we?" and I heartily agreed.

I've not heard of anybody snorting this stuff; but, it couldn't hurt to have some around for other contingencies. I keep this item in my trauma bag and survival kits.

http://www.z-medica.com/

[Sundae]

Tonchi
OMG. I've never been as disgusted and fascinated by something at the same time. I read the whole thing through with my hands over my open mouth.

I'm ridiculously squeamish about blood. When I give blood I won't let them tell me anything about what's happening or it makes me retch (they know me at the Donor Centre now and let me get on with it). So I both loved and hated the image of the Manson family decorating your house while you were out

Tonchi. That was the coolest thing EVER!
Thanks!

[Griff]

friggin amazing story!

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Elspode! Are you accusing me of having.... fanny bogeys?

Wrong side, luv...and I was thinking more along the lines of amusement, not hygiene.

[limey]

@ Tonchi's TMI

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by Tonchi

I guess they call it that because it is the shape of the horn on said zoo animal and almost as big.

Actually, the animal is named that because "rhino" refers to the nose. Thus the medical term "rhinoplasty" being used for a nose job.

rhinoceros - c.1300, from L. rhinoceros, from Gk. rhinokeros, from rhinos "nose" (a word of unknown origin) + keras "horn." Shortened form rhino is first attested 1884.

Sounds scary as hell, Tonchi.

Oh, only cool because you are ok now, btw. I hope it never happens again.