When you live with a hemophiliac, you get used to seeing blood in strange places. This morning a red dollop lay on the stairs followed by two small splatters. My bleeder was in the shower and had been since he woke up, so I was slightly concerned and first checked the cat. You can hear the old creaking house when you walk anywhere. I hadn’t heard the steps moan yet. What mouse, squirrel, rat had been murdered? The attic door was open and I’m pretty sure there’s something living in the black corners up stairs. “Are you bleeding?” I yelled a few times through the closed bathroom door. No answer. The drops had dried into a color too red to be human. Nail polish maybe?
Pat gets bloody noses constantly. They’ve had to cauterize, glue, clasp, stuff his nostrils with things that to me look like globs of dirt. He gets enough for the both of us. I don’t think I’ve had a bloody nose since I was a little girl – not even last winter when I was elbowed and kicked straight on with a soccer ball. Whenever I would get them, my mom would tell me to stop picking my nose. But where’s the fun in that?
I’ve found blood on the side of the mattress, pillow cases, the bathroom sink, shirts, whole toilet paper rolls tie-dyed in the garbage, the stairs, my face – his blood is a bright ruby, almost electric and it’s something he’s never been afraid of. He can give himself IVs! Ick. He’s been poked in almost every vein he has. When we were in a car accident in Craters of the Moon, ID, he had a needle sticking into his hand for a week due to multiple doses of his medicine – THE FACTOR 8. I sort of think he’s a super hero despite it being a genetic malfunction. He’s athletic, but could never play football, so he absorbed Spanish, joined the debate team, became class president. I find his student politics hilarious. And now 10 years later he’s stuck planning a reunion he won’t be able to attend. hahaha!
When he got out of the bathroom, it was discovered the yes, he did have a bloody nose, but in the shower, which in my opinion is the best possible place to have a bloody nose: minimal cleanup, no red tissues gleaming like unmined ore in the trashcan. He must have gone downstairs. Still, the cat’s tail flicked dangerously at the attic door. The bathmat had a new red stain that’s never going to come out.
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