Epistaxis

Last night, I woke up at 4am to discover that I had a nosebleed.  My first thought: ugh, not again.  My second thought: do I have a hematological malignancy?  Or what if it's a nasopharyngeal carcinoma??  They are more common in East Asians, after all.  Before I could worry about it any more, I fell asleep again.

This actually isn't anything new; I've had recurrent nosebleeds since I was a young child.  They've always been on the right side and never on the left, so I suspect that I have some sort of telangiectasia (small vascular malformation) inside my right nostril that is prone to rupture.  When I was younger, my grandfather actually took me to his hospital to see if they could use laser treatment to seal off the bad vessels.  In the end, I didn't get it done for a reason I can't remember.

The upsetting thing is that every time I've blown my nose today, it has started bleeding again.  Moral of the story: if I suddenly start gushing blood while you're talking to me... well, at least you'll know why.