Your concern and the way you want to deal with it are legit, as I can attest myself. I have been on Eliquis (apixaban) since July of 2017. I have cut myself several times, and been bashed, whether using implements or falling off my bicycle. I'm still here, typing, and even had two ablations where they asked me to stop taking apixaban the morning before the day of ablation, but loaded me up with heparin just prior to the operation. What all this means is that if the danger were that severe, it would be off the market, and nobody would take it, or pay for it if they were prescribed it.

The DOACs (Direct Oral Anti-Coagulants) only 'retard' the clotting mechanism, they don't 'prevent' it. They buy you a little time if your blood begins to circulate poorly in your left atrial appendage during an arrhythmia, and then wants to clot. This is all the DOACs do...they buy you time so that your poorly-beating heart can still clear most or all of the 'stale' blood in the appendage. Believe me, you'd rather bleed a bit messily, even internally, than have a clot travel to your own heart, your lungs, or egads...to your brain.

Wasn't it Samuel Clemens who said, 'I have feared many things in my life, most of which never happened?' If you poll 1000 people, even those with tough fears to manage, they'll rationalize when given the various choices that a stroke is almost always going to be worse than an internal bleed.