The Hedge Incident and the blood that never stops flowing

I tried to warn you, but no.

"We want to know about the hedge incident, blah, blah, blah!", you said.

So, the hedge incident, eh?  Well, it is quite special in that it features aspects and people from the fence incident included in yesterdays rant.  It is like the fence incident but so much more.  So much.

Lives nearly ended.  Sanity was lost and many people may never be the same again.  Also, the hedge incident hasn't official closed.  One aspect (well, more than one if you went and spoke to mad lady of the hounds and could stand listening to her bitter diatribe for more than a few seconds, before wanting to snap her dry, leathery neck like an old twig (oh! I can hear the sound of it snapping!  Ding, dong, the witch is dead.... oh well, may be one day) ) of the hedge incident remains unresolved (despite regular promptings and whinges from her majesty next door) and as far as I'm concerned will continue to do so.  Anyway, that's enough of that unpleasantness for now.

Whilst lying in bed with a nose bleed that just wouldn't stop (more in a moment, if you can contain yourself), I had an idea.  Let me run it by you.  Do you remember the card game Top Trumps?  Come on,you know you do.  You had a set of cards, related to some subject or other, e.g. cars.  Each card had a picture of a different car (or whatever) on and then there was a list of factoids, e.g. Speed, comfort, acceleration, cost.  Each of these stats had a number rating between 1 and 10 (I think).  To play the game, you would have the cards evenly dealt out and you would pick the top one (or could you choose one?) and pick its strongest stat.  The other people had to have a higher value for that stat on their card otherwise they lost their cards to you.  Probably the most boring game I ever played, as initially I inherited a top trump set from my sister and it was for flowers.  A great was to get beaten up at school.  I used to be a bit of a big time doctor who fan when I was little and my regard for Top Trumps totally turned around when I discovered a Doctor Who version.  Wow!  I could put down Cybermen and choose the stat scariness and win the card for the Krotons (a doctor who monster from years back, who looked like badly stuck together cardboard boxes (which they probably were), spoke in brummie accents (no joke) and whose nasty big weapon shot steam (ooh, scary!) ).

Anyway, back to my idea.  I was sitting here, waiting for some kind of clotting to happen, when I thought what might a bunch of miserable cancer patients, all stuck together in a room on multi-coloured drips need to brighten up their days?  Answer:  Chemotherapy Drug Top Trumps!

It's a winner!  You could have stats for:  Toxicity, Vomit inducing, cost, number of side effects, length of infusion.  I can imagine kids at school playing it.

"I've got Cisplatin.  Vomit factor 9"

"Oh!  That beats my Doxorubicin!  If you had picked heart damage as the stat, I would have won!"

Sounds a winner to me.  What do you reckon?

Yeah, last night my nose decided to start bleeding.  Not something that happens often and normally not a problem, but when on anti-clotting drugs it can prove a bit annoying (and it did).

After going through numerous paper towers trying to stop it, a nurse wandered by, saw what I was doing and told me off for not ringing them for assistance.  She then disappeared and said she had rung the on-call doctor and they would give me some clotting enhancing agent in the morning.  I mentioned I was on Fragmin (anti-clotting agent) and she went, "ooh, hmmm, I had better ring him back" and went off again.  Meanwhile I had a cunning plan.  When I was little and had a nose bleed, I might sometimes create a "plug" for it.  Basically, roll up some tissue paper into a small tube type shape and shove it up your konk, thus blocking the bloods exit.  I did exactly that.  All seemed to be good, until I could see blood around the edges soaking through.  After a while, it had slowed but was still going.  I lay back on my bed with a paper towel in place.  The nurse returned to say they wouldn't be giving any clotting agent, as I was on anti-clotting drugs.  A revelation!  She said the on-call doctor would come and see me though.  By now, I had got the bleed to finally stop.  I laid back in a position, so as not to tip my head or risk starting it off again.  I dozed off.  I was awakened by the doctor who told me my nose had stopped bleeding.  I said I know.  They then went on to ask me various questions about how often I had nose bleeds (rarely), whether I was bleeding from anywhere else (urgh!  no), etc.  They said they would check my platelet counts (the cells in the blood responsible for making clots) to see if I was low and needed any transfusing (I didn't).  They then went away and I could sleep.  So an exciting night was had by all.