My calf hasn’t hurt for a little over a week and the swelling has been steading going down, so when I woke up on the 25th to more swelling than ever I thought it would be wise to see a doctor. After all the morning Christmas stuff I mentioned that I would like to go to urgent care for my swollen leg. I didn’t have to wait too long to be seen. My pulse was strong and the rate was good. My blood pressure was excellent. The doctor came in and listened to my story and then asked for my diagnosis. I wasn’t sure I heard him right so I asked “My diagnosis?”
“What do you think it might be?”
“I think it might be a blood clot.”
He agreed, but wasn’t certain because despite my leg being swollen and red I had no pain which usually goes along with it. He went through some more possibilities before deciding that it was definitely a clot and sent me to Dominican for an ultrasound.
Dominican wasn’t crowded in radiology but there was only one radiologist on duty that day and that included covering the emergency room which was apparently crowded. The ultrasound tech. found the clot but couldn’t tell me because she’s not a doctor. She also said that I couldn’t get a CD of the images. It was cool to listen to my blood rushing when the probe was kept in one place. After that they sent the results to the urgent care and the doctor there called me back and teld me it was a large clot and that he was trying to get me some Lovenox from Dominican. Apparently the only pharmacy open at that point was in Watsonville and they didn’t have much. Domican had plenty but they didn’t want to give it up unless I was admitted to the emergency room so off to the emergency room we went.
Dominican was fast at getting me checked in and all the results were sent over to the one doctor on duty there. Unfortunately I seemed to arrive during a shift change so while I was put in a room and hooked up to the monitor I wasn’t added to the list. I was able to listen to the patients around me liek the woman across the hall whose husband died ten years ago that day. Forty-five minutes and still no doctor later Nicole flagged a nurse down to get some attention. The nurse then got the current doctor who knew nothing about my situation so the story got told again and they wanted to draw their own blood. For whatever reason they decided the side of my forearm was a good target (ow!) and we got to see my pulse jump to 92. The doctor decided I had a large clot and should have Lovenox and get started on Coumadin. He also ordered more blood tests to determine whether I’m a hyper-clotter or not so they needed another poke for that one. Luckily they decided to go for the crook on my left arm. I also got my first Lovenox shot (actually two because I’m big) subcutaneously on the sides of my stomach. We finally got out of there and went home where I put up my leg and we watched tv until I fell asleep.
I transferred to the bed and this morning the swelling was greatly reduced. I went to the doctor they set up for me to see as a followup and she said my leg was looking good and prescribed the rest of my Lovenox supply which Nicole or Julie will be lucky enough to inject me with later. The doctor saw no reason for or against using a thrombosis stocking so that’s up to me. For now I’m going to go without one I think.
How did it happen? No one is sure. One generally has to be a hyper-clotter, have some trauma or surgery recently, or be sitting or laying in one position for about 20 hours. I wasn’t sitting around that long and there isn’t any recent trauma so I have to wait for the results on the hyper-clotting. My aunt recently had problems with clots that the doctors believe are left over from a car accident four-years ago so if that’s the case this could be related to my long ago scooter accident. The doctor says that’s not likely though.
So now it’s drugs and rest for the rest of the weekend.