A Bloody Mess

A caution to this tale: It does involve blood,  but nothing too gruesome.

I was that trainee. The one who could barely contain their excitement and ran to people like a puppy fresh off a leash. I'd get ahead of my trainer and say hi to anyone I could. That was all I basically knew how to say. I always did the opener, which was: "Hi! How are you? Do you know about Jesus?" And my trainer had to do the rest while I nodded along pretending I knew what was going on.

Then the excitement started to fade as I realized that all we did was walk the streets eight hours each day just to get rejected. Of course, the people were usually nice, although I didn't always understand what they said to us. The dread of contacting was slowly kicking in.

Also at this time I was having issues with my nose. It's like in the bible with the woman with the issue of blood. Mine was an issue of blood in my nose. It was awful. I'd have about two to three bloody noses a day.

I had spent most of my life with that problem. All of my siblings had. We have thin blood vessels in our nostrils that get easily agitated. I've had my fair share of the awful timing bloody noses can ever so gracefully bestow upon a person.

One cold December night my trainer and I were walking down a street that headed to our favorite stretch of the Volga. We took the back way. This one wrapped around a shopping center and a  recreational center. As we passed the center, I stopped dead in my tracks and muttered, "uh, oh."

I turned to look at my trainer with innocent eyes as two waterfalls came spurting out both nostrils. It was a doozy. It was coming out hard and fast. I'm talking about blood, in case you didn't catch that. It would've been weird if it was snot, although probably more manageable. I covered my nose with my bare hands and sent my helpless gaze to Sister T. "Help," I whispered.

She looked utterly frantic. She scrounged around in her bag for anything that could pass as a tissue. No such luck. I had none in mine. I really should've bought some on Monday, but I didn't. Money was tight and I thought I'd rather eat, but at that moment I thought I would rather not pass out from loss of blood.

We ran to a snow bank and I let myself bleed it out. It usually doesn't last too long, but this one was a gusher. I looked around and realized I only had one option. Snow. I ostrich dived my head into the fluffy pile of fresh snow and knelt bent over for a good 30 seconds just letting the snow freeze my face to hopefully slow the bleeding.

I heard a stifled gasp of laughter coming from Sister T. I twisted my head enough for one eye to poke out through the burrow I made for my face and said, "I look ridiculous don't I?" We both cackled about my predicament. I stood up sharply once I realized the cold was hurting more than helping. We looked down at the burrow that was now a pool of my nose blood.

"Wow, it looks like I committed murder! We should put up some crime tape." I was in shock from how much it truly looked like a homicide was committed in that once ostrich head burrow.
"Especially since you have blood all over your face and down your coat." Sister T was giving me an up-down, though from afar, refusing to get too close.

I grabbed a fist full of snow and thought, let's try again. The cold that seeped in to my face prickled my face like tiny darts of frozen shards. It hurt immensely. I'd let the snow melt and then I'd grab another holding it gently to my face just praying and hoping the bleeding would stop. We tried to stop strangers passing by to see if they had tissues, but if you remember from before, I looked like a murderer so they just scurried along leaving me helpless with my bloodied snow.

Finally. Finally, it stopped! We had been sitting there freezing, me even more so since my face was dosed with snow, for an entire hour! We walked slowly to the metro station. I was feeling faint and disoriented. Sister T had tried a little to get the blood of my coat with some snow, though it didn't help much. We hobbled through the heavy metro doors giggling since we could now see myself in better lighting. I looked terrible. Hilariously so.

I tried not to study the faces of passersby. I was worried they'd call for the police. I got a few stares from the security guards, though they let me through. I guess its not that strange to walk around with blood stains in Russia.  Crazy Russians.

The train made its way through the tunnel and slid to a halting stop. Its sliding doors guided us in.  I then heard over the intercom, "Остарожно! Дверь закрывается." I thought to myself instead of  saying: "careful, the doors are closing," it should announce, "Careful, a bloody girl, who looks like a murderer just entered."

I laughed at the thought and Sister T's eyes met mind. We did a glance over at the blood still on my hands and lost it. Oh what a night. I try to recall what my logic was for shoving my head in a hill of snow, but I have no idea why I thought it was a great idea, because it wasn't. It is hilarious to think of the memory now.

A few weeks later my mission president's wife made me go to a Russian hospital because the problem with my nose was getting worse. I understood nothing of what the doctor said to me. Instead she wrote down everything she said in crazy Russian cursive, which was so much better. Not it wasn't. Actually in the end it turned out being better because we had this awesome friend who spoke English fluently and who is a native Russian and he had the super power to read crazy doctor Russian cursive.

Anywho, the doctor ended up shoving a small sponge up my nose. She said it was supposed to be in there for six weeks, and to not touch it, and that it will help moisturize my nose so that the blood vessels wouldn't crack as much, or so she something like that. Like I said, I couldn't understand her.

Yeah, it only lasted a day. That thing was so irritating. Every time I breathed in I felt like I was going to sneeze. I have to say though that I was stubborn enough to leave it. The shower wasn't as kind as I was. Nor was fate. During the middle of my morning shower I felt it slide out of my nose, its head poking out a bit, as if a curious earthworm wanted to know what sunlight actually felt like. Then it was so excited to be out it just jumped to freedom and took a grand exit down the drain.

I was incredibly shocked. The first thing I thought to do was to yell: "SISTER!! It went down the drain!" And it was to be seen no more, as well as that doctor. I was glad to be free of it. I was okay with dealing with more almost murder scenes and make shift ostrich burrows made of snow if it meant I didn't have to have that awful sponge shoved up my nostril again.