#hemoptysis

anti villain club

Content Warning: Blood, barf, poops.

 I think this is a really fascinating part of our history that held through into the modern era.

I think this trope really comes back to tuberculosis, which is absolutely famous for its bloody cough. Once upon a time it killed a lot of people, and because that bloody cough is how it spreads, it was something to fear for literally generations. (It still exists today; I treated a patient with it yesterday actually and it’s rampant in prisons, but it’s a disease we’ve learned to treat.) But TB is almost certainly where this trope comes from.

We’ve talked about hemoptysis -- a bloody cough -- before. There are oh so many causes, such as TB, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) in the pulmonary blood vessels, acute pulmonary edema / congestive heart failure, and more. It can come from physical damage to the trachea or bronchi, from cancer, prom peneumonia, from House’s favorite (sarcoidosis).

Medically speaking, I’ll be honest: a bloody cough is in no way shape or form a Good Thing(TM). It’s certainly not always fatal, but it’s a sign of badness in the airway.

As a trope or convention or cliche (your pick) of TV shows, I think it’s used as a marker of illness/injury severity. If you’ve been shot in the chest and you’re coughing up blood, that is a Bad News Bear. Though it’s hardly used realistically -- the most common cause I see is less “I cough and there’s blood” and more “I coughed and there’s this gob of ick and OH MY GOD LIKE 0.0004mL OF BLOOD I’M GOING TO DIE BECAUSE TV TOLD ME SO” because they’ve irritated the airway from coughing, or less “blood” and more “pink, frothy spittle” that’s associated with severe pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), which typically comes from heart failure.

This is also closely related to vomiting up blood. Most “bloody vomit” is just small streaks of blood in vomit (or people barfing up tomato sauce and/or wine), but large amounts of blood in the puke is a severe medical emergency because it’s a bleed we can’t see and have a very hard time controlling. People have bled to death in their GI tract -- ungood.

But yeah, how come Hollywood never shows us their characters are dying by having them poop blood, anyway? (That’s actually usually from hemorrhoids, but it can be from a severe GI bleed, colitis, etc.) 

Mostly, I think most writers as a visually-disturbing-but-not-actually-gross way of pointing out that “hey, this guy’s really sick”, even if what they’ve given their character has nothing to do with their lungs or a cough. I’d like to see it change, or at least come from something  that could actually produce it.

I hope this rambly answer gave you what you needed to keep writing great stories!!

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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Hemoptysis:

3: Does your OC behave differently around different people, if so with whom and how?

around pretty much everyone, theyre super distant and kinda cold towards people

around humans specifically theyre hella antsy and feral

7: Does your OC have any irrational phobias?

theyre scared shitless of fire

30: What makes your OC defensive quickest?

being around humans. theyre entire life, theyve known humans as those that trapped them into this cramped hell storm of a labyrinth

Dren:

12: What is one of the most primary things your OC feels that is missing from their life?

just being able to relax

13: What kind of situations does your OC avoid the most?

anything where anyone can jump it or high stress situations in general

19: What boosts your OC’s confidence the most?

It has been finally completed

And I tried doing the flashlight lighting in pencil