Let Me Tell You About the Time I Faced Death in a Pristine Bathroom

Ah, yes. I'm back.

I'm happy to say that my meeting with "The Yates Family" went splendidly. I met Joel, Aimee, and their two sweet kids--and not one of them tried to kill me!

Getting to the meeting was a bit of a trial, though. I almost died of my own accord. Here's what happened:

I was just sitting around at my sister's house, contemplating how that might be my last day on Earth, and out of nowhere, I got a bloody nose. Now, I've had bloody noses before, and I know they don't usually start "out of nowhere." Usually, they start out of "I was just sitting there picking my nose like my life depended on it," but this time, I really wasn't picking my nose. (I would admit it if I was.)

So anyway...there I was, minding my own business, when suddenly I feel a trickle of liquid inching its way down my left nostril toward my lip. Assuming it was snot, I reached up to wipe it with my bare hand (because I'm so dignified like that), and saw immediately that it was...the dreaded "B" word: blood.

And if my bloody nose was trickling at first, by the time I had a strip of toilet paper ready to shove up there (to curb the flow), it was a torrential downpour. I couldn't prepare wads of TP fast enough. I've never seen blood like that. It was coming so fast that it had time to drip all the way down my chin before I could get a new wad of paper in its place.

Of course, you know my history with blood: my history with blood is bad. Very, very bad. And seeing it in this...free-flowing state...it was pretty scary. I positioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror, because somehow, despite my aversion to blood, I can't resist an occasional bit of gore and macabre. And since I knew I was going to die, I figured I might as well watch my own undoing. How many people can say they get to do that?

Before long, the gush started on down my throat, where I promptly spit it out into the bathroom sink. But evidently if you're bending over to spit out mouthfuls of blood, you aren't in a good position to be stopping the problem...because a few moments later, my right nostril also started bleeding. I have had my fair share of bloody noses in my life...but never out of both nostrils at the same time.

It was at this point that I realised I could do nothing to save myself. Crying out in despair (amidst spitting up entire mouthfuls of blood [into Adell's once-pristine bathroom sink {which was at this point virtually covered in my blood}]), I stood there shaking, waiting to die. Because I was dying--I had already lost more than enough blood for a hundred blood work tests, and I was dying from the loss.

My first thought in the face of the trial was, "I have Alberta Health Care, but I don't think I have travel insurance down here. Only USAA, and that's just for Tamra Camry. So if, after I die, Adell finds me and calls 911 and they try and revive me at the hospital, it will cost Poor Kyle thousands."

My second thought was, "And then he'll remarry, that uncaring man. How dare he remind me of such a thing, on my deathbed??"

And my third thought was, "I made such a fuss about 'Joel and Aimee Yates' that they'll think I've chickened out when I don't show up. My final day alive, and I can't even go out looking like a brave sort of girl."

And then the black--the dark, unanswered black that had been lingering in the periphery of my mind through the whole ordeal--closed in and overtook.

...Okay, not really. I didn't pass out or die, thanks to some quick thinking by my sister who normally would have freaked out more than me in such a situation. I did, however, cough up a few clots the size of egg yolks (I know. Go throw up now, at the thought) and ruin a couple of towels. But in the end, it stopped.

And I made lunch with the Yates family, who, by allowing me to live, earned the right to have the quotation marks dropped. They're legit. And very nice.

I didn't take pictures, though. I brought my camera, even took it into the restaurant, but I was too chicken. I thought if I suggested it they'd think I was weird...

...too much loss of blood, I guess.