A single woman was recently forced to confront the scary side of living alone after kitchen mishap. Single woman, Tricia "Trillian" McMillian is contemplating "getting back out there" again after a long dating hiatus. The catalyst for her change of stance on dating was a small kitchen accident involving a glass bowl falling and crashing into shards on the floor around her bare feet. One of the large shards bounced and poked her bare foot, causing copious amounts of blood to gush from the wound. She quickly and carefully made her way out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

"Based on the amount of blood I thought it was really serious. My foot was immediately absolutely drenched in blood. I turned on the cold water in the bathtub and ran my foot under the cool water, and even with the force of the tub faucet the bleeding was so intense that I couldn't get a good look at the wound. The way the blood ran in steady streams over the side of my foot, it looked like there was at least one huge gash along the top and side of the ball of my foot, maybe two large gashes. And you know how glass cuts are - they're so sharp they don't really hurt at first. That was when I started to worry. How was I going to get to a hospital? I was sure a gash like that would need stitches. I tried to apply pressure but the blood just kept oozing all over the place. It was really gross and I started to get queasy. The tissues I used to wipe my foot were immediately drenched in blood. I started to feel faint."

It was at that point that the single woman started to contemplate bigger issues than the cut on her foot.  If she hit her head when she fell after fainting, no one would know there was anything wrong until she didn't show up for work the next day. By then the blood loss and head injury would either kill her or, more likely, leave her with brain damage. "Okay, I know that's kind of an extreme reaction, but you didn't see the blood. It looked like a crime scene in there," the single woman said, shuddering at the memory of the aftermath left in her bathroom the night she cut her foot, "people call the Red Cross disaster response team for lesser messes than that."

The single woman sat on the edge of the bathtub and continued to apply pressure to her foot while holding it under the tub faucet. Eventually the flow of blood decreased enough to allow Ms. McMillian to asses the wound. To her surprise, it was a deep puncture wound rather than one or more cuts. Once she found the source of the blood, she applied firm, direct pressure and the bleeding eventually decreased.  Eventually she was able to apply a bandage and leave the bathroom to clean up the bloody foot prints and mess in the kitchen.

However, the incident was a catalyst for a period of introspection punctuated by paranoia and self-pity. "When I was bleeding profusely and thought there were multiple, deep wounds requiring stitches, I was trying really hard to not hyperventilate. But I kept thinking, 'How am I going to get to a hospital?' and 'I can't pass out, I can't pass out, I'll bleed to death if I pass out...' and those thoughts made me more stressed. I found it really difficult to get myself to a calm state of mind. I'm usually pretty good in a crisis, but the blood, I mean, there was just so much blood, so much blood, and for a few minutes I just couldn't get a grip."

Fortunately she did get a grip and after applying constant pressure to the wound the bleeding slowed and eventually entirely stopped. But the reality of being single and living alone lingered through the evening and into the next day.

"We all die alone, as they say," Ms. McMillian said, taking on a pragmatic tone, "but I'd rather not die by fainting, hitting my head and bleeding to death because it took a couple days for anyone to worry enough about me to break into my home a look for me. And the fact that it would probably be someone from work, mad that I didn't show up or call in sick, really pushed me over the edge and into a period of deep reflection." 

The single woman contemplated her options: A roommate, a servant or a boyfriend. "A roommate is probably far more attainable, and I could use some help with household expenses, but I have a small one bedroom condo, and bunking up in one bedroom doesn't appeal to me at this juncture in my life. I can't afford a live-in butler or caregiver, so, that leaves me with no other option than a boyfriend." The single woman gave up dating several years ago after several failed attempts at relationships and dating. She reports that since accepting her fate as spinster there's been a sense of relief. "Sure, I get lonely. And sometimes I get really sad. And lonely. But. It's nothing like the loneliness I felt after being rejected by man after man," Ms. McMillian sighed, wistfully, "I really do not want to 'get back out there' again. But. I don't want to bleed to death alone in my bathroom. I've always been really independent, but this experience left me kinda scared about living alone."