Track Workout: Fail. Hello Urgent Care

So last night, the boys and I were driving to our Tuesday night track workout.  They were fighting a bit when I got home from work to pick them up and I was annoyed.  About 5 minutes from the track, they started fighting again about something ridiculous (one had scratched the other in a game they were playing).  I was completely irritated.  Then Jake started screaming.  I looked back and he was bleeding EVERYWHERE.  

Bloody nose.  He tends to get them chronically in the winter, but he had gotten them a couple of times this week too.  Of course I didn't have any tissues in my car, so I handed him a black shirt I had.

We got to the track, walked down to the bathroom and I started helping him clean up his hands while he continued pinching his nose to get the bleeding to stop.  I looked at him and saw blood in his right eye - holy crap!  I wiped it away and it seemed like it was gone.  He must have pushed it up there from his nose.

Nope, minutes later, he started profusely bleeding from his right eye.  His nose was still gushing too.  Holy crap.  My friend Michelle was there and she called 911 for me.

Jake kept pinching his nose and we'd replace the paper towels when he needed it and I kept blotting his eye with a wet paper towel when the blood accumulated.

He said things to me like:

Am I going to go blind?  I can't see mom and I am really scared. (he must have said this 10 times) 

I would cry right now mom but I'm afraid I will make it worse.

I kept reassuring him that he'd be fine but it was the scariest thing ever.  Blood was pooling in his eye and dripping down unless I was constantly wiping it away.  The paramedics came and said they couldn't do much more than we were to get it to stop, but they could transport him to the ER or we could take him to the urgent care a few blocks away.   His eye stopped bleeding (thank God), they clamped his nose and we took off for the urgent care.  (Big thanks to my friend Jerry who helped us get there).  


We checked in and were told it was an hour + wait.  2 hours later (seriously) we saw a doctor.

Apparently, this is totally normal.  The sinuses are connected to the nose and when he pinched his nose, the blood went upward and pooled into his eyes.  They were totally unconcerned.

I was so glad he was fine.  I had been so scared.  It was one of those moments I was afraid that this was it, the shoe is going to drop, something really bad is going on.  I was afraid they were going to tell me he had cancer or some crazy horrible illness.

Thank God they didn't.  I am off for a run.  Still need to clear my head....Nothing in the parenting manual prepares you for seeing your 9 year old bleeding from the eye.

Update: had a great run to clear my head.  Also scheduled a follow-up with his pediatrician.  I need a little more piece of mind.