This morning Mathew woke up in a bloody mess. He had a bloody nose and amazing as it seems, slept while the blood flowed from his nose over his beloved Ryan (his stuffed bear), over the sheets and through the mattress cover (thank goodness the mattress cover is thick and the blood didn’t get into his mattress. Mathew has on occasion experienced a nosebleed, but this time the amount of blood and the fact he slept through it was quite impressive. The bloodstain was larger than the size of his head. Don’t worry, I didn’t take any pictures.

So how does one deal with this situation? It’s 5am and there is quite a mess to clean up.

First, I clean-up Mathew’s face and made sure his nose is not bleeding anymore. It’s isn’t, YAY!

Next, take the soiled sheets, Ryan, and mattress cover over off to the laundry, remake the bed, and put Mathew back to sleep.

Now, what to do about the bloody mess? Hydrogen Peroxide to the rescue! First, I rinse as much blood out as possible with cold water, then pour hydrogen peroxide directly onto the stain, presto like magic, the bloodstain starts to foam and disappear. The reason why it foams is because blood and cells contain an enzyme called catalase. When we bleed, there are both blood and damaged cells, so there is lots of catalase floating around. When the catalase comes in contact with hydrogen peroxide, it turns the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into water (H2O) and oxygen gas (O2). Catalase does this extremely efficiently — up to 200,000 reactions per second. The bubbles you see in the foam are pure oxygen bubbles being created by the catalase.

Ok, so once I removed most of the blood, I simply wash the sheets in cold water with detergent. But before I put them in the dryer, I re-check to make sure all blood is gone. If I missed some stains, I just repeat the steps above. It’s important to never dry blood stained sheets/clothes, as the heat will set the stain and it will be close to impossible to get it out.

Hopefully, you will not have to use this trick, but here you are just in case.