My Bus Driver Guardian Angel

There have been very few instances in my life when I felt myself close to death. There have been brushes, indeed. When I was eight years old, I had run back to the local water ice truck to buy a rainbow cone. In my haste, I tripped and fell directly in front of an oncoming car. To this day, I am not sure how I survived. Was my body small enough to fit between the wheels or did the driver stop in time? Regardless, the woman driving the car insisted on taking me home and refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. I suppose I was lucky two times that day. First, not to have been run over by the car and second, not to have wound up on a milk carton. The closest that I feel that I come to departing this world coincided with what should have been one of the happiest times of my life, my engagement to my wife, Bonnie.

The particular health crisis began harmlessly enough with a simple nosebleed. I had experienced nosebleeds from the time that I was a child, usually brought on by placing an errant finger where it didn’t belong. As an adult, I have become somewhat of an expert at stopping nosebleeds because, working as a Preschool teacher, many of my students have experienced the occasional nosebleed due to becoming over activity or the afore mentioned errant finger.

This particular nosebleed was different that any that I had ever experienced. It started after I had sneezed while I was cleaning my ear with a Q-tip. Assuming that it was a run of the mill event, I applied pressure and leaned my head forward waiting for it to stop, only blood continued to pour out of my nose unabated.

By some good fortune, I happened to be at my parent’s house when this nosebleed occurred, and my mother took me to the emergency room. As normally occurs, the most severely injured are prioritized over minor bruises, sprains, and you guessed it, nosebleeds. I was eventually seen by the attending physician who plugged a small hole that had formed inside my nose from the force of the sneeze. I was thankful that my nosebleed nightmare had come to an end. What I didn’t know was that they had just begun and would continue for the next six months.

In the coming weeks and months, these nosebleeds would occur at the most inconvenient times, when I was attending religious services, at work, and when my fiancé and I were engaged in wedding planning activities.

The nosebleeds were becoming so severe and frequent that I actually returned to my primary doctor for several follow-ups. He, in turn, sent me to a number of ears, nose, and throat specialists to try to end these bleeding attacks. But nothing seemed to work. Yet, I continued to go to my ‘work’ every day as a preschool teacher.

I had always been taught that you placed work above everything else. Therefore, I told myself that I was not going to let a little nosebleed stop me from doing my job. What I didn’t realize that I was dealing with a health issue that was not going to go away on its’ own. It would take a Guardian Angel dressed in a transit uniform for me to come to this realization.

Six months after the nosebleeds had started, I had woken up with blood on my pillow from a nosebleed during the night. However, as usual, I decided that the blood had dried up and that I would be able to make it through the day with just a few episodes of nosebleeds. Therefore, I proceeded with my morning routine of eating breakfast, showering, getting dressed, packing a lunch, and headed out the door.

At that time, I was taking the transit bus, known in Philadelphia as SEPTA, to work every day. As I was waiting for the bus that morning, I experienced a rather intense nosebleed attack, so much so that I debated whether to go back upstairs or still go into work. I decided that the nosebleed would pass and that I would be fine. However, by the time, the bus arrived, I was holding two napkins drenched with my own blood over my nose.

Seeing my blood-stained napkins, the transit driver, Monique, asked if I was doing alright. I decided to lie and said that “it’s nothing and will go away in a few minutes.”

However, by the time that Monique had gone three more stops, I had already made it on to my third tissue. Seeing that my nosebleed was not letting up, Monique called back from the driver’s seat. “Are you sure that you going to be alright, Honey?” I once again insisted that I would be fine, but I knew that I wouldn’t be making it to work that day.

Rising from my seat, I rang the bell to indicate that I wanted to get off at the next stop. My plan was to take the southbound bus home and put an ice pack on my nose. My Transit Guardian Angel, Monique, was having none of my excuses.

Monique told me, “You need to get yourself to the hospital, Honey. I have babies at home who have nosebleeds all the time and none of their bleeds last for more than five or ten minutes.”

It was in that moment that I confessed that my nosebleeds had been going on for months on end and that there was no end in sight.

Monique then told me, “Well, those bleeds are going to end today because I am driving you to the hospital.”

True to her word, Monique drove me on the SEPTA bus to Temple Hospital’s emergency room and helped me to check. My Transit Guardian Angel then did something completely unexpected. She radioed her dispatcher that she needed another driver to relieve her. Monique stated that a family emergency had arisen and that she would need to take the morning off. She stayed with me until I was seen by a medical student in Temple’s Emergency Room. I might add the Medical Student who very likely saved my life. She was able to do what no other doctors had been able to do for me before, stop the nosebleeds for good.

When I left the emergency room forty-five minutes later, I was greeted by Monique who informed me that she had called me a cab to take me back home. I thanked her again for all she had done, asking if there was anything that I could do in return. She replied, “Seeing one of God’s children returned to health was all the thanks that she required.”