“Nosebleed” versus “recalcitrant epistaxis with severe symptomatic hemorrhagic blood loss anemia requiring blood transfusion”
What’s in a name? Everything.
In the pre pandemic times several of us were at the Marine Safety Detachment Coast Guard base in Unalaska, out in The Aleutian Islands, watching Monday Night Football. The flight crew was out in the office completing paperwork from a rescue mission they had flown the night before. Their medical kit had been out on the Cutter out at sea so we had loaned them the supplies they thought they might need before they left. I heard a sigh from out in the office…
“Does anyone have another word for nosebleed?”
Everyone chuckled. “Why do you need another word for nosebleed?”
“Because if I write that we flew a night mission over the pass in that weather to medevac a nosebleed — I am never going to live it down…”
“I bet Sarah has another word for it” Tony, Jeff, Jake, Mitchell and Cody said almost simultaneously.
I had heard about this patient via several different avenues over the past three days as they attempted to get them to the mainland for care and we remained as backup to assist. It had evolved into a truly life threatening bleed that had gone on for days — partly due to weather inhibiting transport — and it had been recalcitrant to all standard protocol interventions that usually help us stop — or at least temporize — a nosebleed.
That is when I said:
“Recalcitrant epistaxis with severe symptomatic hemorrhagic blood loss anemia requiring blood transfusion”
From the office came “Can you spell that?”
Everyone laughed and I spelled it.
So I ask again — what is in a name?
Everything.
It might be difficult for non-medical people to understand that a persistent nosebleed out on an island 1000 miles from the mainland could actually be a life threatening bleed— but — they truly can be — and while some people might giggle about a nosebleed — no one is going to question the authoritative medical verbiage of recalcitrant epistaxis with severe symptomatic hemorrhagic blood loss anemia. It sounds terrible…and it is terrible. It was terrible.
P.S.
The Earth is not flat. We landed on the moon. Vaccines are not made from fetuses. The Covid19 pandemic is real. Please wear a mask. We just want to keep you all safe and healthy with your loved ones now and in the future.
With love, from the frontlines. Thank you.
