Nosebleed!
It started at midnight, and it was a gusher. By 1:30, it was still going, so ladysolly took me to Stoke Mandeville hospital. They saw me very quickly, and I thought we'd staunched the flow, but it restarted.
Then the doctor got involved, and put some wadding soaked in something up the nostril, but that didn't help. So he decided that I'd have to go to the "Ear, nose and throat" unit at John Radcliffe. They arranged an ambulance to transfer me, but first he put a "balloon" up my nose, which was very painful - and then he inflated it, which felt even worse - but at least it served as a stop-gap to stop the bleeding.
There followed a painful (because of the balloon) and rather jolting ride of 35 minutes to Oxford. They put me in a bed in a corridor, and I waited ... and waited. They had two resuscitations going, and everyone was going at full speed on those. But then someone noticed me, decided that I didn't need to go through triage (because I was a referral from Stoke) and I went straight up to the GP referral ward.
That ward was almost empty, so I saw the doctor immediately. He removed the balloon and asked me about what had happened. He used suction to clear out the mess inside, then used a light to examine the nostril. He found the problem immediately, and said that the answer was to cauterise.
I didn't like the sound of that, I was thinking of red hot iron. But no, it's a dab of silver nitrate on a stick! Then he applied antiseptic, and then he shoved a sponge up the nostril that was soaked in various good stuff (the sponge will dissolve itself).
So, problem fixed, but I did lose a full night's sleep, and now I need to catch up.
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