Hemoptysis: A Fancy Word for a Lung Bleed

Day 17: I coughed up cups of blood, then drove myself to hospital

Years ago, I had watched my best friend Julie cough mouthfuls of blood and casually spit into the sink as if it was no big deal. So when I first saw bloody streaks in my sputum, I wasn’t overly concerned. 
​At times there were more than streaks, and sometimes those episodes lingered longer than I would have liked.

Photo Credit: Sandi Parsons

One night I went to bed feeling fine. I woke from a deep sleep in a coughing fit. In my dream, someone was spraying the back of my throat with a water pistol (everyone else has strange dreams too, right?). Eventually, I woke up enough to realise that there was no water pistol and that I was experiencing a massive bleed.

I returned to bed, where my son lay sleeping, and continued to cough blood - this time spitting into a cup that could hold around 200mls. When I eventually stopped bleeding, I looked a mess. There was blood over the sheets and through my hair. I cleaned up, then sat upright in bed until dawn. With the dawn came my morning cough, and that sparked another round of bleeding — another another cupful of blood.

Once Jarryn was awake, I got him ready for school. As I did, I was discreetly spitting blood into a plastic cup which I once again filled. I drove Jarryn to school before driving myself to hospital. I was hoping to talk my way into doing antibiotics at home, but my medical staff wouldn’t budge.

It was the first time since Jarryn had been born that I was admitted to hospital.

Snap, crackle, and pop
For the next three years, I was a random bleeder. There is a particular sensation, hard to describe, but a hybrid feeling that manages to both push and pull at the same time. After that, you can both feel and hear the crackle of blood pooling in your lungs. So I call it, ‘snap, crackle and pop’.
It would strike without warning, seemingly when I was feeling fine, however, an infection had been bubbling away in the background.

It wasn't uncommon for me to yell "Cup!" while we were driving. Jarryn would pull a plastic cup out of the glove box and hold it out for me to spit into, until we could safely stop. 

Three years after my bleeds started, they stopped just as suddenly as they had started. 

31 Days of Cystic Fibrosis Bonus Fact
As I was collecting Jarryn from my Gran’s after school, I went snap, crackle, and pop, and blood filled my mouth. I never liked to worry my Gran, so I tried to hustle Jarryn out the door before she could notice.
Jarryn wasn’t displaying any signs of moving in a hurry. So, as I am a delightful mother, I turned my back on Gran and gave Jarryn the full Gene Simmons — bloody mouth complete with waggling tongue.
​He moved pretty quickly after that, and my Gran was none the wiser!
(And now the lead picture makes sense!)

Next in the 31 Days of Cystic Fibrosis series - The Reasonably Good Health I Had Enjoyed Up to This Point Would Not Continue Forever

Traveling with CF. Once I started traveling, I didn’t want to stop.

31 Days of Cystic Fibrosis is an awareness-raising campaign to coincide with
the national Cystic Fibrosis (CF) awareness month in Australia.
​
​If you’ve just joined the journey and want to start at the beginning, you’ll find the first post here: Your Daughter Has Cystic Fibrosis