Blood oozing from the nose unabated, sputtering on my blouse, on the carpet, on the sink, even on the toilet where I spit out as when throwing up a venom of blood. One would think someone was murdered, thus scattering all that blood all over. Didn't want to have to bother my sons; it was 9:00 PM. Ruel must be in the middle of finishing a paper to catch up with a school deadline. Besides, he lives too far. Orly must be asleep; he might have turned off his cell phone. Call 911? Nah, they wouldn't pay attention; it's not life-threatening, they would say. But I was fast losing blood and beginning to weaken. Never experienced a nose bleed that lasted for two hours. Applied cold compress, pinched my nose as I learned from my First Aid lesson, and laid down. But whenever I stood up, there it would start again. I finally gave up and decided to call my son, Orly, who lives closer. Thank got he answered his cell phone. He promptly got up. dressed, and started driving over to my place. He rushed me to Kaiser emergency unit where the pesky nose bleed was treated, but more: blood tests, x'ray. needles stuck on both arms, monitoring heartbeat, blood pressure, IV feeding, etc. The verdict: I had mild pneumonia. You know how you feel when you're stuck with needles on both arms and blood being drawn from you for all kinds of testing? You begin to think of your mortality. Quite a few deaths are attributed to pneumonia, and I sometimes think that when doctors don't really know what one died of, they write "pneumonia" on the line Cause of Death. My regular doctor, however, assured me later this was just cough and cold that takes a few weeks to get rid of. Ah, what a relief.
Grateful to my Orly for staying with me the whole night at the hospital without a wink of sleep till 5 o'clock in the morning. God bless my son!
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Children are precious. Be pro-life. The child you want to abort may someday save your life.
