One Crime Scene: Zero Body
This afternoon, I realized I hadn't seen YoungestBoy after his arrival home from school. I called his name and when he didn't answer, I began to search. I found him in the bathroom, standing over the toilet. Blood covered his face and dripped into a scarlet red toilet bowl. He was sniffing and snorting the dripping blood into the toilet.
Blood drops led from the laundry room into the bathroom. Blood spattered the walls, the toilet rim, the floor and my boy. Sticky blood coated both hands. I'm surprised he didn't need a transfusion. He looked like a murderer or a victim of violent crime.
He said, "I have a bloody nose." And I said, "You sure do. Here, press this on it." I handed him a washcloth and noted the newly stained yellow shirt he wore. The last time he wore this shirt, which was the first time he wore this shirt, he also managed to bloody it. Hydrogen peroxide removed the stains then. The shirt may be beyond salvage now. Blood splatters cover it now..
I directed him to sit down with a cloth on his nose and he said, "Don't worry. I'll clean it up." As if!
While he sat and bled some more, I cleaned up the scene of the nosebleed. I hope that's the closest I ever come to a crime scene. Mopping up his blood was a gruesome task. I am just thankful there was no corpse.
And he's fine. Occasionally, he just gets a little rough with his nasal passages and has a nosebleed. That was the first time he's ever bent over the toilet and let his blood dye the toilet-water crimson, though. I hope it was the last.
(Oh, and speaking of shirts--at noon, I received a phone call from school. He'd spilled chocolate milk on the same shirt, and because it was Picture Day, they asked if I could bring a new shirt to school. I couldn't, but my neighbor came to my rescue and delivered a shirt. Apparently, after the photograph was taken, he put his stained shirt back on, which became completely blood-splattered upon his return home. That shirt is just destined for destruction.)
Blood drops led from the laundry room into the bathroom. Blood spattered the walls, the toilet rim, the floor and my boy. Sticky blood coated both hands. I'm surprised he didn't need a transfusion. He looked like a murderer or a victim of violent crime.
He said, "I have a bloody nose." And I said, "You sure do. Here, press this on it." I handed him a washcloth and noted the newly stained yellow shirt he wore. The last time he wore this shirt, which was the first time he wore this shirt, he also managed to bloody it. Hydrogen peroxide removed the stains then. The shirt may be beyond salvage now. Blood splatters cover it now..
I directed him to sit down with a cloth on his nose and he said, "Don't worry. I'll clean it up." As if!
While he sat and bled some more, I cleaned up the scene of the nosebleed. I hope that's the closest I ever come to a crime scene. Mopping up his blood was a gruesome task. I am just thankful there was no corpse.
And he's fine. Occasionally, he just gets a little rough with his nasal passages and has a nosebleed. That was the first time he's ever bent over the toilet and let his blood dye the toilet-water crimson, though. I hope it was the last.
(Oh, and speaking of shirts--at noon, I received a phone call from school. He'd spilled chocolate milk on the same shirt, and because it was Picture Day, they asked if I could bring a new shirt to school. I couldn't, but my neighbor came to my rescue and delivered a shirt. Apparently, after the photograph was taken, he put his stained shirt back on, which became completely blood-splattered upon his return home. That shirt is just destined for destruction.)
posted by Melodee at Thursday, April 14, 2005
5 Comments:
The shirt was clearly cursed. Burn it in a ritual of some sort.
Blood always looks like more than it really is. It spreads, it stains, it makes a real mess. Generally the shock from seeing blood creates a bigger medical risk than blood loss itself. When I took an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) class the instructor poured a quart of fake blood on the floor to show just how bad a non-life threatening loss of blood can look. It must have spread out to about a 20' circle.
If you want to calculate it here's the non-fatal allowable blood loss
Jay
Oh my goodness! My husband and I roared laughter at reading your post.
Poor little guy!
I think I would die if I found my son in pools of blood like that. He fell in the parking lot today and scraped his knee. Later, I saw a little tiny spot of blood dried up on my shirt. I kinda freaked out and made my husband search him for cuts and scrapes. Of course, I'm not cool with messes, either, so that could make a big difference! You are so patient and good with that kind of stuff!
My four year old son gets nose bleeds all the time. The doctor says he'll grow out of it but it's incredibly unerving!
Oh, what a brave boy (and mom!).
My husband went through a phase of having nose bleeds a lot.
One night he came home from work, walked in the door and said, "Don't look at me!"
Well, of course, I did.
It looked like he had been shot in the face. He was holding up what looked like a big white bloody bandage to his face.
As the story unfolded, he got the bloody nose while driving home. There was NOTHING in the car, so, while still driving, he had taken off his shoe, and was trying to staunch the blood flow with his sock.
Yucky. It was gross.
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