Europe Fall 2024 - Lauching The Eldership On A River Of Blood

As previously noted, it is time for Wife and I to hit the road again. Gosh, I've been home from Ghana for 9 days! Isn't that long enough to get itchy and need to get back to Airport World?

Europe 2024 is intended to be a pullback from the insanity of Around the World of this spring. We are first going to Amsterdam for a couple of days of nostalgia visit (after having visited their so many times during the 12 (or was it 14) years Daughter #3 lived there. (#3 is even coming to visit us to make the nostalgia reunion complete). Then we are going to Italy. Our goal is to find another place that 'resonates' with as a place we might want to go for a longer stay. We'll be going from the Slovenia coast of the Adriatic to about half way down. Then we go to Spain, returning to El Compello where we are staying for a month. 

No Eldership voyage is considered complete without some crisis during the 24 hours preceding departure. We've had multiple electronic devices die the day before, banking issues, twice we had electrical lights disconnect from the ceiling and dangle precipitously from an electrical wire. Yesterday we decided to go with a medical based alternative.

It's around 11:30, I'm driving a short way to a drug store to pick up an item for the trip. I feel something dripping out of my nose. I put my hand to my nose and see blood. I stop the car in the parking lot. The blood is really flowing. I can't find anything to hold to my nose other than a few old face masks still in the car from Covid days. Holding these my nose, I manage to drive one-handed back to the house. 

I go from the car to the bathroom by the kitchen. Releasing the face masks, the blood gushes out in a volume greater than I've ever seen. I'm freaking out. I'm trying to get tissue and paper towels to try and staunch the flow, while pitching my nose. The bathroom sink is a total bloody mess. I keep cleaning up while trying to hold my nose with a wad of bloody paper products. 

I manage to get to my phone in the kitchen and again one-handed key in a search for what do if you have a bloody nose that won't stop. The answer is simple - get medical help. I finally call Wife down and we head to the hospital emergency room. Even though it is a holiday, there are few people in the waiting room when I get there. Of course, my mind is going overtime assuming I have a brain tumor or something, going to have to cancel our whole trip, etc. 

If you are familiar with U.S. emergency rooms you know there will be a lot of waiting...waiting to be checked in, waiting to actually get into the treatment area, waiting to be treated, waiting to be discharged. This visit did not disappoint. As soon as they checked me in the put this clamp like thing over my nose, which over the almost two hours of waiting was like some torture device from the inquisition. 

When finally seen, things had finally slowed up substantially. Turns out there are some arteries in your nose as well as veins (I guess that's pretty logical) and when they go, the flow is spectacular. Once they got things stopped, they cauterized the wound to create scabbing. 

After four hours, I was able to come home and finally get packed. 

I've taken one of the clamps with me just for insurance.