Chief Complaint of the Night

Mom brings in a school age kid at about 3 AM- she's practically dragging the kid back to triage when I call them. Finally wakes him up enough so that he could stand on the scale on his own. At first I think he must have had some kind of head trauma and this must be some real shit, but no, he just really wanted to be home in his bed because he had been in school and it was three in the effin' morning.

The life threatening condition for which the mother felt he needed to be in the ER for at this time? A nosebleed that had happened 4 hours prior to arrival and lasted about 20 minutes. The bleeding had stopped and the kid had gone to bed, but she was "concerned" and "wanted to get it checked out". And yes, in case you were wondering, his hands were also caked in Cheeto dust. Of course.

Unrelated: I'm studying for the GRE right now, so posts will be short, sweet, and possibly infrequent. In the meantime, I suggest you read the yahoo! answers questions about reproduction if you're having withdrawals from the tales of foolishness.