The First Time In Forever

TW: Blood

I vividly remember one of my worst memories from when I had my blood clot nearly ten years ago: I had requested a bedpan, so Mom and Dad left the room. Just as soon as the nurse finished setting me up, she left too - and that was when I jerked up at the waist and coughed a slick, cherry-red blood clot into my left hand. It was the size of a half-dollar coin, and somehow, between my lifelong emetophobia and new fear of blood, it was the most terrifying thing I could possibly imagine.

I remember trying to convince myself to breathe long enough to go to the bathroom. I remember how the nurse didn’t seem to care at all as she helped me get off the bedpan and back in bed. And I remember how Mom, who had been trying to hold things together when I was in the hospital, rushed in when she saw the look on my face and heard my sobs as I finally let loose everything I was feeling.

Ever since that day, I feared that I would have another recurrence of this incident. I knew that it was due to the medication I was taking at the time - t-PA, a drug so powerful that I had to be in the ICU to receive it - but still, I feared that somehow, my blood thinners would make it happen again.

It became the demon of many of my horror stories, the one thing I couldn’t watch on TV, the most horrifying intersection of my fears that I couldn’t get out of my head. It was etched so deeply in there that I figured I would always remember the feel of it in my hand, the way some of the blood ran in the lines of my palm, the pit in my stomach as I thought it was the beginning of the end of my life.

I’m grateful that it didn’t happen again when I shoved my feelings and fears under the rug for years, ignoring my trauma until I couldn’t anymore. I’m grateful that it didn’t happen again when I graduated college, or went to grad school, or moved to small-town Pennsylvania, or moved to Chicago. I’m grateful that it at least waited until six weeks after my dog died, as I’ve been starting to feel stronger.

I needed that strength when, after a particularly unpleasant projectile nosebleed, I felt the urge to cough and I felt a clot, just as slippery and bright red, fall out of my mouth and into the sink.

I was on the phone with Mom, and had been ever since I sneezed blood so hard across my laptop that it took a significant amount of effort to clean up. With no provocation, my nose had been bleeding for about fifteen minutes. I knew to tilt my head forward, to keep the blood from flowing down the back of my throat, but as it turned out, I must have missed some.

Never before have I had anything like this from a nosebleed, even the somewhat explosive ones I started to get after I first went on blood thinners. And in that moment, even though it had been nine years and ten months since I last coughed up blood, all I could see was the ICU room once again.

Thankfully, it’s been years since I experienced invasive flashbacks, but I couldn’t help it at that moment. I remembered the details, every terrifying one, and somehow I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the clot as it stuck to the side of my sink. It was the size of one of my fingernails. It was just sitting there, a nightmare come true.

Here, in my own apartment, no one else was going to clean it up. I blubbered to Mom what had happened while I sprayed water at it, eventually making it go down the drain. My tongue was a bloody red, my teeth tasted like copper, and even when I started spitting into the sink repeatedly, the saliva kept coming up red, and no amount of reassurance was enough to convince me that it was over.

Just like when I was in the hospital so long ago, my heart was pounding, and my trauma felt as immediate as if it had just happened for the first time. But luckily, I had far more resources. I texted a few friends, all of whom immediately called and asked if there was anything they could do to help. I decided to put my to-do list aside for the afternoon and practice self-care, which I don’t do often, but it helped me find my equilibrium. I was able to stop the building panic attack from actually happening, and thanks to some especially helpful texts from my therapist, D., I started to feel like I had done something brave.

Instead of this fear only existing in stories or on TV, I had witnessed it, while being alone in my apartment, and knew what to do. I was no longer the helpless nineteen-year-old thinking about how she’d never hit twenty or get kissed. I’m ten years older, a lot more experienced with my brain and how my OCD can fixate on trauma, and I know what to do.

It didn’t help much when, later that night, I had another nosebleed - and another the following day. I’m still half-convinced it’ll happen again, but now, I have an example of a time blood has come out of my mouth and I’ve been totally fine. No hospitals, only a phone call to my hematologist (who did say I should get checked out if I had a nosebleed for more than fifteen minutes, but I fudged the time a little to get out of it). Aside from the moment when I leaped ten years in the past uncontrollably at the sight of a blood clot coming out of my mouth, I stayed in the present, used all sorts of techniques from therapy - and now, a few days later, I can say that I’m feeling okay.

I never thought I would be able to deal with something like this related to my traumatic medical experience and not spiral out of control. It’s just like how, when I was a kid, I never thought I could have a life where OCD doesn’t control everything I do. I’m proud that I’ve reached this point, and hopefully, the next time I inevitably have a “first time” related to trauma, I can remember this lesson and carry on being strong.

Ellie, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.