Just another day in the life.

So today got off to an early and vicious start. I had to go across the street and babysit for my neighbor, she has a twice a year job cleaning a factory and they have to start really early.

It was brutal when my alarm went off at 4:45. Back in my working day, that would have been sleeping in. I would have been starting work by then. But now....now.... seven thirty, I need to sleep til 7:30!!!

On top of that, it was a blizzard outside, and it seems a lot longer walk from my front door to hers when it's blizzarding. So I arrive, shaking, cold, and wet, she goes off on her merry way and I sit on her couch in the dark and freeze for an hour, I was too dang cold to sleep. Finally I got up and went to find the thermostat. They had it all they way to the freakin left. The furnace didn't even kick on til it got below 55 degrees! No wonder I was freezing! I raised it to 70 and figured I would put it back before she got home.

So, B heads off to work at 7 and sends my kids over, her kids wake up shortly after and I get them all dressed and take them back to my nice, toasty, comfy house. The kids are having a great time playing together and their dad comes around 9:30 to take them home. Their son C decides he wants to stay and play and about an hour later they are mock sword fighting in the hall. No sooner do I get done saying "You guys better stop doing that or someone will get hurt" then *POP* C beans K in the nose with his fist.

I had serious worries that the kid was going to bleed to death. Holy cow, it GUSHED for 15 minutes before we managed to get it to even slow down long enough for me to call my mom.

Mom?

Yes...

K got beaned in the nose and it's bleeding hard. If I let go (I was pinching it like you are supposed to) it literally squirts, what do I do???

Well, you should probably take him to the doctor to see if it's broken.

Yeah, that's what I thought. You want my other two to come stay with you for a bit? Please?

Yeah, I will have your dad meet you at instacare to bring them home with him.

So I bundle my bleeding son up for the second time in about a month and drag him off to instacare (I have been there WAY too many times lately!) and we sit in the waiting room for roughly two hours. See, there was this big snow storm this morning, which resulted in lots of fender benders, which resulted in lots of people sitting at instacare waiting to get checked out. ARGH. The good news is, that after an hour, the bleeding finally stopped. The better news is, we sat in this little square of six chairs and the guy sitting across from us was a riot. He kept K entertained, and bought him and orange soda. They were so nice, and the lady sitting next to us was pretty fun too. She actually sat there with her fingers in her ears saying la la la la la because K was talking about getting to see "The Water Horse" and she didn't want him to spoil it for her LOL.

I think that was the most fun I have ever had in a medical setting! I was almost sad when they called our name to go back to see the doctor.

The good news is the bone isn't broken. The bad news is that the cartilage is and there is nothing they can do about it. The doctor also said it was normal to have really heavy bleeding like that when the tip of the nose is injured which was a huge relief for me because....

As K sat there hemorrhaging into the bathroom sink, all I could think of was my cousin M. She had a nose bleed that wouldn't stop. Then they diagnosed her with aplastic anemia. Kinda like leukemia but without the cancer part. Much the same treatment though, she had to undergo drugs to kill her immune system, then chemo, then lots of other yucky stuff. She was really sick for a really long time, and aplastic anemia is life threatening and often kills the patient.

We are very lucky to have M still around, and I am feeling very blessed for K's broken cartilage!