An INR of 3.4 will make you bleed—A LOT
Yesterday was one of those days you don’t want to live if you had a choice. I worked in the morning, and at my first lunch break, decided to jump in the shower. I had an appointment with the plastic surgeon that afternoon so decided it was time to try–man I cannot tell you the hit to my ego in recognizing literally we have nobody, really, but each other? But I took a shower because I rarely leave the house and it seemed like the right thing to do. Get somewhat presentable since I WAS in fact, leaving the house.
So my blueberry, err, grape blood blister decided to pop during said shower and proceeded to fill the water at my feet with blood that continued to pour and pulse out of the blister even long after it was drained. It WOULDN’T STOP. It just keep going and I am in the shower trying to clean the non bloody parts and rinse those off with one hand while the other held my head. It really never slowed down and if you ever get a wound on our head near the artery/vein whatever it was…it will literally just keep going until it clots.
So I am stumbling around the apartment, totally bleeding to death, leaving a blood trail everywhere so I call Don and tell him I cannot get the blood to stop. he doesn’t answer. Then I realize it is NOT slowing down at all and I am bleeding through all the towels, paper towels everything and so I call 911. They show up maybe 15 minutes later and the four of them come bumbling in and see the blood and almost cannot believe there is SO much. They wrapped me up and luckily I had managed to get pants and underwear and socks on and my red robe, covered in blood but WELL hidden. We left and the ambulance guy and girl were very fascinated with my physiology–I even let them grab that auxiliary tube on my side that was used to divert the blood from my arms to my legs during the second surgery.
We get to the hospital and the look on the cops face at the entrance betrays exactly how blood covered I am–it is in my hair, smeared all over both arms and hands, smeared all over my face. I am getting rolled through the ER and am laughing telling people…”it’s just a blood blister, nobody tried to murder me, I swear!” I clearly look like Carrie a la pigs blood dumped all over me and some people laugh and others run away down the hall.
An hour later the blood has stopped, I am stitched up and they want to let me go home. The nurse revealed my INR was 3.4 and I realized all those hair and skin vitamins must have done it. I still don’t have the phone since the EMTS took it on 1/22 and I have yet to replace it so I am stuck. Don is at work and I literally have not a single soul I can call to come get me. This happened the first night I was there as well and it took me 2.5 hours waiting for the cab to come get me to take me home that night. This time I weighed all of my options and realized–the birth mother was the only one I knew the phone number of, but clearly that was NOT gonna happen, nor was it a good idea. Literally she would not even be someone I would call or have anyone else call even with the threat of death or having to walk home in my bathrobe and socks, which I had half a mind to do. There is not a single circumstance I could count on someone who threw me away to remedy so it’s just as good to not even bother, which I didn’t.
Luckily my job saved the day because I did not know what to do. I was carried out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back and keys. I called them and they ordered an UBER to come get me and though it sucked explaining Don was all the way out in Parker and I was over an hour away…that I had nobody in the whole state I could call to help me. That did suck, but they came through, and HR paid for that car for me to get home which was a little less terrible than asking one of them to come get me. I walked out of that hospital with the ace bandage mullet as they had to wrap it tight around my head. Some two hours later I am crying my face off in so much pain. We had NOTHING in respect to any painkillers, nothing as I don’t take them but a big bottle of ibuprofen but those guys literally don’t make them in mg past 300. So I took 6 and waited, moaning in the bedroom. Don was home at this point and did not know what to do so I just sat in the bedroom whimpering on my own and crying out that if this was the type of pain I ever had to endure but for a short short time that I would rather be dead.
As Don said, the kind of pain you cannot escape from…yup. All from having my forehead resealed one more time in the same wound, this time not 2 stitches but 3. And that appointment with the plastic surgeon has to be delayed just a little bit longer.
Water. My blood literally had the consistency of water–and given most people’s clotting comes in at 1 or so and my goal is 2.5–3.4 was a huge increase from that.
Go hair vitamins though…if they can cut down my coumadin use, I see only good things! And that is my good news aside from the uber from yesterday.
Oh yes yes…today is Valentine’s Day I guess. We are too poor and honestly…I have zero exactly zero memories of anyone doing anything nice for me on Valentine’s day ever. Hell, our year marriage anniversary is coming up here and we won’t do anything for that either (we didn’t have a wedding, party, rings, and I didn’t get my dress so what is there to celebrate but being responsible). He has his own health insurance now but anything could have happened between then and now and maybe if we didn’t get him on my insurance it would have ended up him having an accident or something that required help.
So that is the story and I am sticking to it. And since we’ve been thrown out of a solid living experience to save for said ceremony–we gotta make a lot more money to ever do that. Or. Win the lottery, which is another unofficial goal.
