Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Most people would not be alive...

The header/title words were similar to the words I heard this past weekend.  Not from one physician, but two physicians and several nurses.

For years, I have been feeling fatigued, trouble sleeping and many other health issues.  Yet I delayed any hospital or Doctor check-ups.  I chalked up the fatigue and other issues to 70 hours weeks and high stress with less exercise.

Last Friday, I was at a point I could no longer ignore the signs.  I was to the point where significant pain and walking upstairs made my muscles sting and heart race.  Often I had to take a break with little activity as I was totally out of breath.  If I tried to continue extreme dizziness resulted. Therefore, being the procrastinating male I am, I decided to stop by urgent care after work.

I checked into urgent care and they asked me a few questions.  I responded that about 17 months ago I had an extreme pain in my right calf that was unexpected.  I massaged, took Advil and use the Ice Heat technique and it was better.  Then a few months later, it was the other leg.  This pattern kept going to the point now that the pain is in the left calf and it is very intense.  I had just returned from a long vacation and explained I spent a great deal of time in a car on several occasions, including the first pain I had over a year ago.  I thought I may have bronchitis, pneumonia or a really bad cold.  They refused to treat me and ordered me to the Emergency Room.  They even refunded my co-pay and stated there would be no change for the visit.

Off I go to the emergency room.  I start giving them the whole story and according to them, I was rather pale.  Then all hell seemed to break loose.  I was surrounded by several people and was in a barrage of tests from Doctors and Nurses.  The way they acted I thought I was going to die and they needed to act fast.

After three hours, they had me on an IV of Heparin.  The Doctor came in and said they found the following:
  • Pulmonary Embolism (significant - they used that word that said they do not recall seeing that bad - blood clots in each lung)
  • Deep Vein Thrombosis – Ultrasound found several areas in the left leg, one large clot in the right.
  • Anemia - A normal red blood cell is men it’s 15g/DL, I have 6.1g/DL and they are trying to find out why.  The remaining possibility are cancer if they can’t find internal bleeding.  They have sent the Biopsies to U of M and results should be in the next few days. 
This is when I heard the first person say most people would not be alive.  I spend the next four days being prodded, poked in more ways than I thought possible.  Upper Endoscopy, Colonoscopy, a few biopsies and more vials of blood than I ever imagined.  Still, no answer for the anemia.

I was released late yesterday yet and very fatigues and am not retaining to work full days.  I take two shots a day and take three different pills until they identify the issue.  Until them, I just need to stay strong and do the best I can to survive.  That in itself is hard to accomplish, yet it is better than the alternative.

3 comments:

wildknits said...

Oh boy! (my polite version of oh shit!)

You are lucky to be alive. Those types of clots can kill (speaking as someone who deals with anticoagulation[warfarin/lovenox] on a daily basis for my work).

I am glad you went in, delayed as it was. And that you are now home. Please take care of yourself and let us know (if you want to) how you are doing.

SteveQ said...

That's some serious stuff to deal with! Hang in there; we're all pulling for you.

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