DISCLAIMER: This article contains graphic descriptions of nose blood, so read at your own discretion! 🙂

This story is littered with “fun facts”. So let me hit you with the first one right away:

Fun fact number one: Among other things, one of the early “indicators” that a person has Leukemia is they begin having frequent nose bleeds. 

A week before I was diagnosed with leukemia, I had a nosebleed every day. But I  assumed they were normal because I broke my nose when I was a little kid, and a consequence of that was having times when my nose would bleed randomly.

How did I break my nose, you might ask? Well, you see, I was on the school playground one day, showing off to all the other elementary school kids by dangling upside down on the monkey bars by my legs. It was really impressive.

Until I fell and landed flat on my face. My tears, screaming, and blood was much less impressive. 

But let’s pull ourselves away from that… delightful image.

Aside from nosebleeds, I also had a ton of other BIG indicators that I was a few days away from a terrible cancer death, but I was somehow able to convince myself that I was fine (give me a break, I was only twelve years old).

Fun fact number 2: Cancer patients often have little-to-no platelets during chemotherapy.

What are platelets? They are that little component of your blood that helps your blood clot whenever you are bleeding. It’s not that important. It just keeps you from BLEEDING OUT when you are cut, having surgery, stabbed, shot, or when you do not use the safety scissors your mom told you to use.

Yeah, no big deal.

In all seriousness, cancer patients having a low platelet count is a huge concern. This is called thrombocytopenia (don’t ask me how to pronounce it).

When you have a low platelet count and then undergo emergency surgery or get injured, there is a very real threat of bleeding out. I was in that position three times during my chemo treatment. Good times!

And today, I am going to share one of those times with you. Exciting, I know! Here we go!

That day, I was not getting chemo. Instead, I was undergoing a necessary blood transfusion.

In essence, my chemo had tanked my blood counts and my blood levels were too “unsafe” to continue on with treatment. So, the solution was to put new, better blood in my body.

(Bad lab results are a frequent occurrence for cancer patients, so blood transfusions are a standard procedure)

You can picture a medical professional glancing down at a clipboard with my lab results and saying, “Well Aspen, your blood is trash AGAIN. Man, chemo really does a number on the human body… No, you don’t need a break from chemo, we just need to pump you full of new blood. Nurse! Bring in the next bag!”

You have to keep a cancer patient just alive enough to put more chemicals in their body to tank it again! It’s all very logical. 

So, that day in the clinic, I was receiving red blood cells (and just to be clear, this does NOT include platelets). This kind of transfusion is a 4-HOUR PROCESS.

To someone in pain and feeling sick, that is a lifetime. I counted down the minutes until I could take my misery back home. There, I was at least not being poked at with needles and injected with… substances.

The time crawled by.

My transfusion finally finished around the time the clinic was about to close. My blood was re-tested and my blood counts were back up to “safer” levels. 

Freedom was within sight! 

But then…

There was no sign. No warning. 

Maybe it was just some minion of the Grim Reaper standing behind the scenes thinking, “what could we do to make Aspen’s life that much worse today?” 

Who knows?

Whatever the cause, my nose started to bleed after my transfusion. Badly. Imagine gushing blood, not a little trickle.

A waterfall, not a measly stream.

I remember one of the doctors saying, “Maybe we should have ordered her platelets, too”. 

You know, retrospect really is 20/20. 

I knew exactly what the look on my doctor’s face meant. It meant I couldn’t go home until that nosebleed stopped. 

I was 3000% done. I was hurting, I was miserable, I was exhausted, and I wanted to be home. I felt like I had the worst luck.

They did everything. Ice, gauze shoved up my nose, steroid nasal sprays, and they tilted my head back. This last method was particularly genius. As soon as I tipped my head back, the blood began to gush down my throat. 

I was basically just drinking my own blood. Does this make me a vampire? Self-vampirism. I should write a book!

Additionally, swallowing copious amounts of blood does not pair well with the nausea most chemo patients already have. When I was in threat of vomiting my own blood all over the floor, my nurses had me lean over and let tissues catch all my blood. We quickly collected an entire trash bag full of those bloody tissues. 

It was a rather impressive collection. 

After TWO HOURS passed people began to panic a bit. The clinic was officially closed, and every nurse had ended up in my room. 

My nose REFUSED to stop bleeding. The Niagara Falls flow refused to even lighten up.

Given my general lack of platelets, the doctors were legitimately concerned about me bleeding out. FROM A NOSEBLEED. 

Was this really to be my end??? I could picture it on my gravestone. “Survived Cancer; Died From Nosebleed”

My doctors knew that I needed platelets if there was any hope of stopping this blood-loss epidemic. But my clinic couldn’t give me any (blood products were ordered specifically for each patient, depending on their blood type and the procedures that were needed that day). 

They did the only thing they could: They packed me up with a few boxes of tissues, my bag of bloody tissues, and sent me to the Emergency Room.

They wheeled me out of the clinic in a wheelchair (at this point I was still way too weak to walk all the way to the car parked outside) and helped me into my mom’s car.

My frantic clinic nurses waved me off like I was a war hero. 

And covered in blood, weak from blood loss, and slightly crying, I probably did look like a soldier pulled off the battlefield.

But, by God, I was a pissed off soldier. 

I had never despised my nose before. But at that point, I would have given anything to be Lord Voldemort. 

My level of tolerance for the blood coming out of my face had dropped far into the negatives. I’m pretty sure I looked like I wanted to kill someone, but the effect was negated by the tissues shoved up my nose.

By this time, I was feeling hungry, and that made me mad too. So, on the way to the Emergency Room, my 14-year old self insisted that we stop and get french fries.

My mom was in a panic. She wanted to get me to the ER as soon as possible.

But I was incredibly stubborn (It’s a gift).

Fun fact number three: Fries are good with ketchup. Not blood. 

You really can’t eat food when your nose is gushing blood. I’m sure you can all imagine how badly that eating attempt failed. 

Fun fact number four: When you are a cancer patient, and you go to the ER, you get admitted really quickly. 

If you are neutropenic, as most cancer patients are, you have no immune system (meaning any moderate illness can be a threat to your life). This means that stepping foot in the ER waiting room that is crawling with germs and sick people, they don’t leave you waiting around. 

Let me tell you, when my mom wheeled me into the emergency room waiting room, it was quite the spectacle. I was covered in blood and crying, and my panicked mom was clutching a trash bag overflowing with bloody gauze.

After 3 more hours in the Emergency Room, one allergic reaction to the platlets they were transfusing, and lots of benadryl to treat the reaction, my nosebleed FINALLY stopped. 

My nose had been bleeding for over 6 HOURS. 

World record anyone? I want to put that on my resume: Survived the world’s longest nosebleed.

I should at least get a scholarship or an honorary speech from someone important. Seriously.

In all honesty, when this nosebleed was happening, I was freaking out, frustrated, and tired of my blood gushing endlessly from my nose. I would have given anything to end it.

But now I look back on this day, and I just can’t stop laughing at how ridiculous it all was.

There were SO MANY freaking bloody tissues. 

I have never seen so many people freak out over a nosebleed. It was truly a beautiful time.

So much blood entered an exited my body that day. And most of it wasn’t even mine.

Laugh or cry right? 

This is just one of the many undesirable experiences I had during my chemotherapy treatment. So, I choose to laugh when I can.

For the sake of ending this story, we are going to ignore the fact that my nose began to bleed again the next day. It’s ok, that one only lasted TWO hours and no platelet transfusion was necessary. 🙂