The sky is turning red
So let me tell you about my Thursday this week.
I’ve been so sick for a week now that death would be an easier option. Violent coughing, massive congestion, hacking up phlegm, muscle soreness. The coughing was so powerful and frequent, and my breathing was so rough that I wondered if this is what someone with emphysema feels like every day. I almost never get sick— I’m most grateful for my iron man constitution— but when I do, I go all out. Working 70-80 hours for two months has finally caught up with me, and even after sleeping away my one day off this week, I woke Thursday at 7 a.m. to a crimson reminder of that: a violent nosebleed.
It gushed everywhere, filled up twenty tissues and napkins, and took 15 minutes to stop. My left nostril apparently had a blood maelstrom swirling within it, and when it let loose, it let loose to the extreme. My primary concern was that I would also bleed from the mouth. That would bring this sickness to a whole different level of concern. Fortunately, I did not. My secondary concern was that I’d be bleeding out my left nostril again that day. Unfortunately, I did.
Betrayed by many, now ornaments dripping above
Around 4 p.m., as I was conversing with a server at a POS at my restaurant, I felt it let loose. Blood started storming out of that damned left nostril. I had her open up my office downstairs, and sat there with a fistful of tissues crammed to my nose, blood red making itself my color for the day. The good thing was, it was over. Though I’ve been getting nosebleeds since I was three, I’d never had more than two in a day.
The return to power draws near
Until Thursday.
Thank God I finally have an assistant G.M., and one I know and trust. And more importantly, one who cares about my well being. Nicole and I go back to my first restaurant gig, Red Lobster, and when the third nosebleed was a repeat of the second, she came into our office and told me to go to emergency. Problem with this one was that it took longer than the others. In fact, each had lasted longer and been bloodier than the last. This one drained down into my throat, and when I spit it out, my office garbage can looked like a crime scene out of Dexter.
From a lacerated sky
So I did something I never do. I left work early. Headed to the local E.R. Hell, I had the best luck in the history of luck in a Manhattan E.R.: the place was empty. I got admitted immediately. Bloodwork, a few X-rays, some fluids draining into my vein. All for the doc to tell me it’s viral, not an infection, and antibiotics won’t do a thing. Oh, and take a few days off from work. Get some rest. Sure why not.
I was angry on my way home. I was also a little hungry. So I did something I never do. I stopped at Burger King.
Abolish the rules made of stone
Forget the fact that I’m a practicing vegetarian. And that I’ve loathed fast food since I’d started cooking and my palate developed. Burger King had one important qualification: at quarter to 2 a.m., it was open.
Creating my structure
So I’m sitting there with my burger, I take the first bite, and then it breaks. The blood storm is raining out my face again. I grab napkins, tissues, anything I can to hold back the crimson rain, but it won’t stop this time. It gets all over my hands, my hoodie, my pants. The tissues can’t hold, so I keep jamming more into the pile. I wash my hands twice with seltzer straight out of the soda machine. It’s still bleeding as I take my hastily wrapped burger and hop in a cab. It stops just as I arrive home. This one takes over a half hour.
But this is not over, folks. This is far from over.
I wash myself down, clean up pretty nicely given the circumstances. I throw on the TV, settle down on my pillow, start up Netflix, and then begin to bleed again.
Five nosebleeds in less than 24 hours. And in my state of bleeding misery, with my chin and upper lip painted red on the left side, as I’m looking at my diseased self in the mirror, all I can think is this:
My face is Raining Blood all day. I’ve finally become my own Slayer song.
Now I shall Reign in Blood!
-Phil Fasso
