The ER

Remember ER? The NBC drama that was popular in the 90's? I loved that show, when it was in its prime. The last few years were not as good, but when it was on fire, I loved it. I loved this character, Dr. Peter Benton... okay, maybe it wasn't his character I loved, but I thought he was the "finest" doctor on the show! Only once in my life have I seen a real life Dr. McDreamy... that was when I was in Boston following my knee surgery... one of the residents who had to check my incisions was hot hot hot... and I remember thinking how handsome he was and how awful I looked following surgery... Ha! Well, last night I had the opportunity to visit a local Emergency Room, and I regretfully report there were no hot docs, at least I didn't see any in my travels. But... that's another topic... I was in the Emergency Room because I was a patient there.

Over the weekend my calf muscle in my left leg (the leg on which I had my pvns surgery) felt tight, almost like I had had a charlie horse in it, like if I moved wrong my calf muscle would seize up... but it didn't. So I thought maybe it was just a tight muscle. I kept trying to stretch it out without relief. I also tried ice, a heating pad, rubbing it, and even tried that old person smelling ben gay creme stuff... nothing... no relief. So then I thought that maybe my body was feeling lame from being inactive, and remembered what my physical therapist in the Boston hospital had said, "movement relieves pain." So I decided to go to Zumba last night, hoping to accomplish two things, 1- loosen up that calf muscle, and 2-to see how my knee handled Zumba. The good news: My knee held up great. The bad news... my calf muscle felt no relief... about 40 minutes into the class I ran out of water and went to refill my water bottle, I looked down at my legs and realized my left leg was blotchy with some reddish and purplish splotches... and I thought it was odd... then I realized that my left leg was very swollen... probably 1.5 times as large as my other leg...and I knew something wasn't okay... so I decided to leave the class. On my way home I called my doctor's office to see if someone was on call. There was a number listed, but I felt a little silly, feeling that I was paranoid, a little calf pain didn't warrant bothering a doctor at home... so I called one of my friends who has the same doctor. I asked her if she thought I should call our doctor and she said that she would be more likely to go to an urgent care facility or maybe the ER if I thought something was wrong... I wasn't sure something was wrong, but I was sure something wasn't right. So I called my sister so I could talk to my brother in law to see what he thought. He asked ma a lot of questions and said that it was possible that I had a blood clot and that he thought going to the ER to get checked out was the smart move. So while still wearing my sweaty zumba clothes, I drove to the ER.

I checked in and was checked by a nurse who said that I would need an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. The ER was a busy place and I waited for about an hour and forty five minutes and was taken for an ultrasound. During that wait I went online and emailed a couple of people. I got some phone calls and had a couple of people offer to come sit with me at the ER. I refused because I was convinced that I was fine, that they would tell me to ice it or something...

The ultrasound tech came to get me and walked me to radiology, along the way there were lots of patients in hallways on gurneys.. triggering some anxiety for me, taking me back to seeing my grandmother and mother in the hospitals over the last few years... my heart rate increased... but I tried to calm myself down and consciously had to separate the present moment from past experiences.. had to tell myself that this was a very different scenario...and had to tell myself to breathe... I told the ultrasound guy that I apologized in advance for wasting his time, that I was probably just a paranoid person, but my doctor brother in law suggested I have it checked out. So when I was told I would have an ultrasound on my leg, I assumed it would be of my calf muscle... naive me... the guy pulled up the leg of my shorts and squirted on this gel stuff, from the highest possible point on my inner leg all the way to my Achilles... then he got his little ultrasound wand thing going and I was thinking, hey now - you didn't even buy me dinner first!!! but... we managed to survive the ultrasound and I asked the guy if he could tell me anything. He told me that he was not supposed to say anything, but that it was a very good thing my brother in law told me to go to the ER... so I asked if I had a clot, and he said, act surprised when the doctors tell you.

A clot? in my leg? What? Wait...a clot is something that can kill people... well I am sure it is a small clot and it's not a big deal... so I asked the ultrasound guy, as he was walking me back to a waiting area to wait for the doctors, am I going to be able to go home tonight or will I have to stay at the hospital? He said he didn't know, that would be the decisions of the doctors... The idea of spending the night in the hospital really bothered me... I think in that moment I felt really alone... and I also flashed back to sitting in my mother's hospital room in the middle of the night and remembering the noises of her room, her breathing, etc., and hated all of those sounds... so the idea of staying there was not a good one... I immediately told myself that I would beg to go home and that I would promise to come back the next day to do whatever needed to be done... but... luckily that was not something I had to deal with...

After knowing I had a clot I called my sister back and at that point I had her call my dad. I could have dialed his number as easily as she could, but at that point I was afraid that I would get upset if I talked with him and knew that me being upset would worry him a lot more than he would already be... It was probably 10:45 at this point... I waited for probably another 45 minutes or so in the waiting room (I could do an entire blog about the other people in the ER...wow...) and then I was taken into a hospital room... it was a private room, it didn't have a bathroom, but it was a room... I was in there for a while, alone, wondering what the hell was going on... and then a nurse came in. I asked her if I could have some water and she said she wasn't sure... that she would have to check the doctor's orders in case they limited my diet for surgery or something... what? oh no no no... there will be no surgery... will there? She told me she would check and let me know either way... she came back, WITH water... yahoo... no surgery, at least for today... eventually a jr. dr. came in... he was a med student, all excited to learn and asked lots of questions. I asked him if I did have a clot and he excitedly replied he had not yet looked at the ultrasound, that he was just there to get some information, but that he would find out for me... great.. this dance... been there, done that...when Gramie was in the hospitals we ended up refusing to have medical students poke and prod her, enough was enough... but I was trying to play nice and let him do his thing. He disappeared for a while, came back to ask more questions and was very interested in PVNS, which he had of course never heard of. He asked me if blood clots were associated with PVNS... I don't know Jr Dr. dude, YOU are the doctor.. oh yeah, wait, you are not yet the doctor... oh well. At that point he did confirm that I did have a clot...listened to my breathing, pushed on my abdomen, felt my legs... and left... eventually the real doc came in and filled me in... I have DVT, Deep Vein Thrombosis, or a blood clot in my leg... not something to be taken lightly. He emphasized how good it was that I came into the ER... they told me all kinds of things I need to watch out for, symptoms that the clot is worsening or moving... and then told me that I would have to be on blood thinning meds for 6 months including the first week of injections! Flashback to Boston... after surgery I had to give myself shots to reduce the risk of clots... so they had a nurse come in and showed me, or reminded me how to shoot up and eventually I got to come home... I got home at about 3 in the morning with instructions to call my doctor ASAP for a follow up appointment, to visit the pharmacy as soon as it opened to ensure that they had the medicine I needed because it is vital I don't skip any doses.... so I didn't sleep... I tossed and turned...and got up around 7:00 this morning to start getting ready for what the day held in store.

It's funny... I was pretty tough through the whole thing... and even got the guts to call my dad a couple times from the hospital because my cell phone wasn't working and it was easier than relaying info to my sister and having her relay it... and I think that I was more worried about making my dad worry about me than I was about the clot itself... All of us, my sister, my dad, and I, have such negative associations with hospitals, and rarely get good news from them, that I felt really guilty for having to call dad... for worrying him. I felt like a burden... even though I know that family is there for each other and want to be there for each other...but... I just feel like he has been through so much, I don't want to cause him stress... but I know as my dad he is going to worry about me, and I can't stop that. I worry about him, and he can't stop that... I worry about worrying my sister too, but it's different... I fell apart a little when I got home... but it didn't last too long...

Anyway... today was pretty uneventful, I stayed home from work and went to the pharmacy early this morning. My insurance company initially denied the injections, but with some prodding agreed to cover it, but only 14 doses when I had been prescribed 20 doses... so the pharmacist, for whom I am thankful, battled with them and they agreed to fill the prescription... Had insurance not covered the meds... the outright cost was over $2,000... unbelievable. Then I went to my doctor in the afternoon and she didn't give me much new information... but reinforced how lucky I was, as did the rest of her office staff, to have caught it...

I talked with my sister today and she shared with me that some of her thoughts were similar to the thoughts she had when her phone would ring and something had happened with mom and said she had some anxiety about me being at the hospital...and had to talk herself down a bit... I totally understood that and told her about my own thoughts as shared above, and how I really had to try to be conscious that my being in the hospital was not the same as mom being in the hospital... a little ptsd perhaps?

so... I am fine, or will be fine... just exhausted... they are not 100% sure why the clot formed, but have a couple of theories... and will run a blood test when I am off the blood thinners to try to determine the cause... and my doctor said she doubts I will have to worry about it again... let's hope... in the meantime... I get to be a bit paranoid, a bit MORE paranoid than usual!