My first full week at the pharmacy was just about to come to an end, I had learned many things that week and met a lot of new people. T was one of them. I had worked with T the entire week, when I did have time to look up from my training she was either helping a customer or checking medications for those waiting. She seemed nice, the customers loved her, and she genuinely seemed to care about them; other than that though, I didn’t know much about her.

Little did I know, there was so much more...

That night I was cleaning the front of the pharmacy before closing. That included dusting the shelves, ordering the medications for the next day, cleaning the windows, and vacuuming. Last on the list of course was vacuuming. There were no outlets at the front of the store, so I had to stretch the cord over our front counter and plug it up beside the register. After I did this, I had to go to the back for something. The pharmacy was empty, so I wasn’t worried that a customer would trip over the cord; I had some time to get what I needed and come back before anyone walked in.

As I made my way to the back, T was making her way to the front.

“I have the vacuum plugged up, don’t trip over the cord.” I told her.

She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Okay!”

For whatever reason, the way she said it made me feel a little uneasy. I turned around to make sure she cleared the cord on the other side of the counter, just in time to witness her not only trip over said cord but swan dive forward into the floor. Had she been on the diving board, I would have given her a ten out of ten. Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t water where she landed but concrete. When she tripped her head shot back and her arms flung themselves to the side, just as she disappeared behind the counter. The first thing that went through my mind was, well I’m fired. I had killed the stores only pharmacist besides the owner. Suddenly, she popped back up exuberantly and shouted, “I’m okay,” and waved at me. She continued her walk to the front of the pharmacy as if nothing happened.

I stood there stunned at what I had just witnessed, I finally managed a, “Are you okay?”

“Yep,” she called.

That was the first of many incidents...

When I attended high school years ago I always seemed to get the coach that was dead set on getting me (and my classmates) to exercise or move around. I was not a fan. Our class was an all girl glass and there were about thirty of us. One particular afternoon, our coach decided to make us hike up a small mountain beside our school. At the top of this mountain was a small gazebo type deal where we stopped to rest and eat. We didn’t stay long and soon it was time to hike back down.

The path was pretty well cut out for us, there was always a danger of running into spiders or snakes though; we lived in the mountains. So we were ever vigilant to watch for these creatures. I was a lazy child and it took plenty of encouragement (or was it threats?) to get me to hike or move in gym class. Good luck with getting me to run, they’d need some incredible motivation to make that happen.

About halfway down this mountain we took a short break, just to catch our breath. I remember panting a little from the steep descent. Although I don’t like exercise, I do love nature. The sound of birds fluttering about and singing filled the air as the wind blew gently through the trees; it was such a peaceful moment, until the screaming started.

Confused I looked up to see one of the sweetest girls in our class, standing a good 3 feet away from me, screaming her lungs out. I thought maybe a spider had dropped on her or maybe she had seen a snake, until I saw something in her hair. I squinted to see what was crawling through her dark hair as more of them appeared. My heart climbed into my throat when I realized there were about ten to twenty yellow jackets crawling out of her long curly hair, she was screaming because some of them had gotten into her shirt and had begun stinging her. Apparently when she stopped, she stood right on their nest in the ground; which started an all out war. One in which we had no chances of winning.

A little background on myself, I’ve cleaned out snake pits, I’ve worked with spiders, and I’ll sit on my porch and watch three to four hundred pound black bear walk by. Put a bee within a mile of me and I’ll practically kill myself trying to get away.

I watched as these bees stormed out of this hole in the ground, as if it were the gateway to the pits of hell itself. Into the air they rose, dozens of them, tiny bringers of swift and painful punishment. They were bent on revenge and blood. Two girls rushed the one who was being stung and began slapping them off, while our teacher fought off the ones in her hair. These women have courage I’ll never have. But the bees kept pouring out of the ground in multitudes, the buzzing sound shot a since of doom into the air around us. The tiny wings of war made circles around us, I’m assuming to decide which of us had to go first.

The teacher finally shoved the girl away from the nest.

“Run!” She shouted.

Say no more. The woman had tried all year to find the proper motivation to get me to run and this was it. I can’t really remember ever moving that fast, most of it was a blur. I remember our coach telling us as we were hiking up to stay on the trail and take it slow and easy, there were several places where you could trip and twist an ankle, there was poison oak and snakes off the trail that we couldn’t see. None of that mattered now. I (along with my whole class) sprinted off of this trail, straight down the mountain. I dove into the bushes and trees, without a second thought of what could be in them. I was pushing through branches, storming down uncharted paths, and leaping from one trail to another below. I didn’t bother to look and see what was in front of me because I knew what was behind me.

I never broke stride. I could hear about ninety percent of the girls in class (most were behind me) screaming as if something were killing them. I learned later, they were being stung. I will say, I did not scream. I didn’t have the time or the energy; I was conserving all my strength for this long mad dash that was before me.

There was a girl that had gotten in front of me, several times she tried to stop and ask if there was a bee on her. I had no time for that. Keep moving honey, you’ll know if I see one. The most terrifying part of it was that, in the brief seconds that there wasn’t screaming, you could hear the bees. They were RIGHT BEHIND US.

When we finally hit the clearing, there was a small path that led to our football field. Of course around the field was our track, I can’t remember how many miles they said it was but it was more than I ever cared to run or walk. Once the girl’s shoes hit the pavement they stopped, they panted for breath as the rest of the class caught up. Not me, I kept running; I had no plans to be caught by a bee that day.

​On a side note, there were only three girls that didn’t get stung on that hike. I was one of them.  

My friend and I decided to grab some dinner after work one night.  A little back story on our friendship we are opposites in every way. My friend, we will call her T for now, is an extrovert, happy, bubbly, talks to EVERYONE, and makes new friends easily. I myself don’t go out into public unless I have to, I make a beeline for whatever I’m there for, refuse to make eye contact, and talk as little as possible before running for the exit.

I’m use to her habits though and I suppose through our friendship, I’m not as bad as I use to be. Of course now that I think about it, I could be worse. Who knows.

Anyway, we were seated and looking at the menu when I began to chastise her for talking to strangers. Talking to someone is one thing but sometimes she gave away a little more information than she needed to. Simply things strangers don’t need to know.

“I don’t do it all the time.” She said defensively.

I felt my face twist as I looked at her but I remained quiet. Our waiter came out to take our order and as he approached the table he smiled.

“Hello ladies, my name is John and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

Before he could finish his spill my friend points to herself, “I’m T.”

She then pointed at me and said, “That’s Laura.”

She literally just introduced us to our waiter after defending herself. I wasn’t sure which part of the whole scenario to be more upset about. The waiter seemed stunned and also uncomfortable.

“Okay,” he said, “What can I get for you tonight?”

Clearly he didn’t care who we were and that was the first time in his life his customers had introduced themselves. As soon as it was out of her mouth, T realized what she had done and looked at me sheepishly. I didn’t say anything as my disapproving glare said it all.

I rest my case.

It was 2:30 am. I was doing what any reasonably sane person would be doing on a cold wintry night, I was sleeping. I was warm and comfortable, wrapped up in my large comforter; snuggling my body pillow. My husband was sound asleep beside me. I was pulled out of my sleep however when my nose began to run. I hate allergies. I have them bad. I wiped it away and tried to ignore the fact that tomorrow morning I would probably be sneezing my head off.

This annoying little sniffle wasn’t going away that easily though. Again, I wiped it away and tried to fall back to sleep; only to have it begin to pour out on my pillow. I sat up quickly in the pitch black in order to find some tissues, which I knew I didn’t have. I’d have to maneuver my way to the bathroom through the dark. At this point I had to cup my hands under my nose to keep it from pouring on the floor. I had never had allergies THIS BAD before. Gross huh? Any who, I hurried as quickly as I could through the darkness, trying to remember what I had left in the floor that I could trip over and hurt myself.

My bathroom at the time was small but had a huge mirror that lined the back wall. Not to be too graphic but my hands were quickly filling up so I rushed into the bathroom only stopping to flick on the light. Never in my life had my nose ran this bad. I’d have to find a high powered allergy medicine now. It took a good two to three seconds for me to realize just what I was looking at in the bathroom mirror. There I stood in all my glory with baggy pajama pants, an over sized t-shirt, with my hair smashed against one side of my head. (And that wasn’t the most shocking part!) Coming out of my nose was not seasonal drip but blood. Blood.

It wasn’t a ‘oh dear let me dab this up’ nose bleed. Oh no, it was liquid crimson flowing from the depths of my very being out of both of my nostrils. So much so that now both of my hands are covered in it. It’s pouring down my chin, whipping around my chin to flow down my neck and onto my t-shirt. My life’s blood poured from my nostrils rapidly into my cupped hands and there didn’t seem to be any end in sight. I took it all in, analyzing the situation and came to the only logical answer I knew of; I was dying. And in true ‘Laura fashion’ I handled the situation accordingly. I began SCREAMING. I could see the future quite clearly at that point; I would die alone in this small bathroom at 2:30 am on a Thursday due to blood loss before anyone could get to me. Did I try to stop the bleeding? Nope. Call for help? Nope. I just screamed. This would be my parting gift to the world, my last ear piercing squall of terror. To make it even better, I could feel it pouring down the back of my throat.

Somewhere between the screaming and the pouring I began to sway back and forth in this tiny bathroom. I’m not sure if I thought I needed to climb into the bathtub or crawl into the shelf with the towels but what I ended up succeeding in doing, was spilling blood onto the floor, across the sink, the toilet, and somehow got some on the wall.

My scream woke my husband who rushed in to see not just myself covered in blood but practically the whole bathroom. My bad.

“What happened?”

To which I replied in a startled terror, “I’m bleeding!”

Yeah, I know. Let the FBI know the case has been solved. Luckily my husband doesn’t panic like I do and he reached over me to get a wash cloth; wetting it in the sink, he turned to me.

“We need to stop the bleeding.”

Yeah, yeah! I like that, let’s do that! He tried to cup the cloth over my nose but at this point I’m still moving around. I’m not
going to stop either; in my mind, if I stop then I’m dead. Gotta keep moving. Why? I have no idea. It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m bleeding out, it was all I had. It kind of felt like the Whack a Mole game at this point, I was the mole and my husband had the hammer. He tried to pin me down and plug my nose but I’m just fighting to stay alive here people!

He finally just pinned me in the corner, grabbing my nose through the cloth and pushing me down to the floor just to get the blood flow to stop. As soon as my bottom touched the floor, I felt what blood that was left in my head and upper body sink down to my toes; my color went with it. I don’t like the sight of blood, especially my own; so at this point I’ve reached my limit and I’m now going to faint. I didn’t.

He managed to stop the bleeding but had to pull me out of the bathroom because the sight of all the blood kept making me nauseated and faint. While I sat at the kitchen table he called 911 ‘just in case’. My husband had even mentioned he had never seen anyone’s nose bleed like that. Well what can I say honey? I go above and beyond in everything I do.

So there I sat, frazzled, bloody, and pale at my kitchen table; wondering where it all went wrong when this EMS worker walked in. He bent down and looked at me, he pressed the tip of his gloved finger to my nose gently and then said, “Yep, looks like a nose bleed.”

I nodded my head in utter amazement, ‘Oh you’re good’ I thought. I could feel my facial features twisting in honest annoyance.

“You wanna go to the hospital?” He asked.

I shook my head in silence, all my witty come backs had flooded out in the crimson waterfall a few minutes ago. 

Turns out, it was just a nose bleed. (I went to an Urgent Care later that morning.) Our bedroom had no windows and as I mentioned it was winter, so we had the heat on all night. The doctor said my nose just got too dry and that’s what caused the bleed. All I would need to keep it from happening again was a humidifier.

A humidifier and a therapist.