As you've probably heard by now, I was admitted into the the hospital a couple of days ago for blood clots in my legs. For those of your who are interested in the medical miracle that is me, or for those of you who just want to know how I am doing, please read on for a detailed description of the past few weeks.
On July 6th, flew back to LA from a super fun trip I had in Houston. I was there to visit my family and had a great time at a beach house. The next day I felt a little iffy. I kind of just shrugged it off as jet lag and went on with my life.
On Thursday, July 7th I noticed I was cold all day at work. I thought it was the air conditioning because my office building likes to blast the A/C on days when it's super hot outside. I kept asking my co-worker, "Are you cold?" and she thought I was insane. My drive home from work that day was awful, I was shivering the whole time, even though it was like 90 degrees outside. That's when I knew I was sick. When I got home, I took my temperature and it was at 104 degrees! I was freezing my ass off, so I took a long super hot shower and went to bed. I called out of work the next day.
For the next three days I was absolutely miserable. When I wasn't burning up, I was shivering uncontrollably. And the whole time I was constantly vomiting and having chorro. (Chorro is Spanish for diarrhea. Since I can't stand the D word, I will be using "chorro" from now on to describe loose bowel movements.) I tried to drink orange juice, I tried to eat chicken noodle soup, I tried to drink tea. Nothing stayed. It came out one end or the other. The only thing I could keep down was Gatorade! Yay for electrolytes!
Finally on Sunday, July 10th, Pat took me to urgent care in his neck of the woods, since the urgent care at my hospital was closed on the weekends. The doctor there diagnosed me with gastroenteritis, which is basically the stomach flu. It could have been caused by traveling or something I ate. I did travel, and you all know that eating leftovers is like a hobby for me, so it was probably a combination of both. The doctor gave me something for vomiting to take as needed and an antibiotic called Ciprofloxacin, to take for five days. I was also advised to get over the counter anti-chorro medicine. I only ended up taking the vomiting pill and the anti-chorro pill once because the very next day I stopped throwing up and having chorro! I could eat again! Yay!
I stayed at Pat's house for the whole week. My temperature went down by the sixth day. The rest of the week I was just building my strength back up. I had one nose bleed on Saturday and thought, "Hm, that's weird." Pat took me home Sunday morning where I went grocery shopping, cleaned my room, and prepared myself to go back to work the next day. That Sunday afternoon, however, I noticed pain in my legs. It felt like I had been working out or pulled a muscle. It was very odd because I hadn't been doing any kind of leg exercises, nor did I fall or get beaten up or anything like that. So I thought maybe because I was stationary for so long being sick, my legs are just getting used to being used again. I wasn't completely buying that, though, because they started to hurt a lot.
The next day, Monday, July 18th, I went back to work. My legs hurt really badly. I was hobbling around like a gimp. The first thing my co-worker said to me when she saw me was, "Are you walking funny?" I thought I could hide it, but it was pretty obvious that I was in a lot of pain. And it just got worse throughout the day. Looking back, I honestly can't believe I actually went to work with so much pain. When I got home that day, I immediately took a shower and went straight to bed. I was not planning on moving for the rest of the night. I hoped my pain would go away the next day and everything would be normal again. But alas, I underestimated my life.
The next day, Tuesday, July 19th the pain had not gone away. In fact, it was worse. So I called out sick from work once again. I called Pat and told him that I wasn't going into work, and I asked him if he could take me to the doctor when he was out from work. Pat, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, insisted on taking me right then. He didn't like the sound of my condition and feared that it could be blood clots, something that I hadn't even thought of. So off we went to the UCLA ER.
When I arrived, I did all the necessary formalities, filled out paper work, waited in the waiting room, answered a bunch of general questions, and after about maybe 30 minutes I was wheeled into the ER room where doctors examined me and listened to what I had to say. I was given an ultrasound by the sweetest little lady. They also did a bunch of bloodwork on me and checked my INR levels. I don't know what INR stands for, but it's basically the thinness of my blood. I'm on a blood thinner called Coumadin, and when you're on Coumadin you have to get your blood checked every month to make sure it's at your targeted range. My target range is between 2 and 3. The higher the number, the thinner your blood. The last time I got my blood checked was the day after coming back from Houston, and my INR was at 2.8. So that was good.
Hours later, the results of my tests came back. According to the ultrasound, I did have a blood clot in my right leg, below my knee. Well, shit. That still didn't explain why my left leg hurt as well. Because supposedly, there were no clots in my left leg. Even more shocking was my INR. It was at 10! Which meant my blood was dangerously thin. It also seemed like an oxymoron because why would I form a blood clot if my blood was so thin? That one had the doctors scratching their heads.
Needless to say, I was admitted into the hospital that night around 9:00. They hooked me up to all the machines and I soon found myself in a position where I had been so many times before. (No, not missionary, unfortunately - get your head out of the gutter!) But back in the hospital. Back to being nursed back to health.
The next day, Wednesday, July 19th, my mom flew in from Houston to be with me. Let me just say that I have the greatest mom in the whole wide world. If I could be half the mother my mom is, I would already be ahead of the game. I am so lucky to have the parents that I have, and to have the support that I do from my family. Throughout the day I spoke to several different doctors and specialists and after all of them put their heads together, this is what they came up with. They think the clot formed weeks ago, before my INR levels dropped. They think the combination of traveling (sitting in the same position for several hours), my heart condition (under developed valve, plus three open heart surgeries for those of you who don't know), and just having a relatively inactive lifestyle (nice way of calling me lazy) caused the clot. In addition to all of that, they ran a test on my blood and found out that I have an antibody that predisposes me to getting blood clots. I forgot what it was called, and I'm in too much pain to go find the doctor's paper work, but basically that means there's something in my genetics that increases my likelihood of getting clots. This antibody is rare in most people, and it doesn't even have to to do with my heart condition, either. I am just lucky, I guess. So because of all those factors, I formed a clot.
My INR levels dropped because of two reasons. 1) During the week I was sick and throwing up and having chorro, I was not getting the necessary nutrients (mainly vitamin K) needed for my blood to stay at a normal level. I was still taking Coumadin at this time, and Coumadin is a very sensitive and infamously unpredictable drug. So since I was throwing up all the time, but still taking Coumain, it was as if I was only taking Coumadin and had nothing else to counteract it, so to speak, thus increasing its effect. Does that make sense? And 2) the Ciprofloxacin I was on did not play nice with Coumadin. Turns out, Cipro increases the effect of Coumadin. Fun stuff! So that explained my INR levels. They still can't explain why my left leg hurts, though. I'm not convinced that there's not a clot in my left leg. But the doctors insist there's not. It's just one of life's little mysteries, I guess.
Basically, as my friend Chandra put it, it was just a perfect storm of circumstances that got me in this situation. Nothing could have been prevented, unfortunately. The doctors decided that the best plan of action was to do nothing. They thought it was too dangerous to do any invasive procedure, and they didn't feel the clot was a big threat. Although it hurts like hell, it's small and below my knee, so the likelihood of it traveling into my heart and lungs is very small. They said for me to just wait for it to dissolve on its own. When it's gone, the pain will stop, too. This apparently could take anywhere from a few weeks to months! That is what kills me the most! The thought of living with this excruciating pain for a month makes me want to chop my legs off!! I can be legless. Not a big deal, right? I can get one of those motorized chairs that fat people use! It'll be awesome! ::sigh:: No, no. I must deal.
I came home from the hospital last night around 10:00. I popped a Vicodin (my new best friend) and knocked out for the night. The plan for the future is to increase my target INR range to 2.5 - 3.5. Hopefully with a higher dosage of Coumadin, I won't form any clots. In addition to that, I must now be more active in my daily activities to increase blood flow in my legs. Since I'm a receptionist, I pretty much sit on my ass all day. I am now instructed to stand up every hour at my desk and do some leg stretches and possibly take a walk around the office if it's not too busy. I also need to take a brisk walk on my lunch break.
So that's that! It still hurts for me to stand and walk. Seriously it's pain I've never felt before in my life! I want to cry every time I have to walk to the bathroom. The sucky thing is, the doctors want me to move around as much as I am capable to increase blood flow. It's a vicious cycle!!! When I'm on the pain killer, it's almost tolerable. Walking still hurts, but the recovery period is much faster. Without the pain killers, my legs pretty much hurt almost all the time. So that's where I'm at now. I will keep you updated as the days go by. My follow up appointment is in one week. I hope I am at least able to stand without any pain because the thought of walking from my building to my car and then from the car to the doctor's office is scaring the crap out of me!
I want to thank all my friends and family who have been so sweet and supportive of me. I feel very loved and very lucky to have you all in my life. It's ironic that I feel the luckiest when unlucky things happen to me.
On July 6th, flew back to LA from a super fun trip I had in Houston. I was there to visit my family and had a great time at a beach house. The next day I felt a little iffy. I kind of just shrugged it off as jet lag and went on with my life.
On Thursday, July 7th I noticed I was cold all day at work. I thought it was the air conditioning because my office building likes to blast the A/C on days when it's super hot outside. I kept asking my co-worker, "Are you cold?" and she thought I was insane. My drive home from work that day was awful, I was shivering the whole time, even though it was like 90 degrees outside. That's when I knew I was sick. When I got home, I took my temperature and it was at 104 degrees! I was freezing my ass off, so I took a long super hot shower and went to bed. I called out of work the next day.
For the next three days I was absolutely miserable. When I wasn't burning up, I was shivering uncontrollably. And the whole time I was constantly vomiting and having chorro. (Chorro is Spanish for diarrhea. Since I can't stand the D word, I will be using "chorro" from now on to describe loose bowel movements.) I tried to drink orange juice, I tried to eat chicken noodle soup, I tried to drink tea. Nothing stayed. It came out one end or the other. The only thing I could keep down was Gatorade! Yay for electrolytes!
Finally on Sunday, July 10th, Pat took me to urgent care in his neck of the woods, since the urgent care at my hospital was closed on the weekends. The doctor there diagnosed me with gastroenteritis, which is basically the stomach flu. It could have been caused by traveling or something I ate. I did travel, and you all know that eating leftovers is like a hobby for me, so it was probably a combination of both. The doctor gave me something for vomiting to take as needed and an antibiotic called Ciprofloxacin, to take for five days. I was also advised to get over the counter anti-chorro medicine. I only ended up taking the vomiting pill and the anti-chorro pill once because the very next day I stopped throwing up and having chorro! I could eat again! Yay!
I stayed at Pat's house for the whole week. My temperature went down by the sixth day. The rest of the week I was just building my strength back up. I had one nose bleed on Saturday and thought, "Hm, that's weird." Pat took me home Sunday morning where I went grocery shopping, cleaned my room, and prepared myself to go back to work the next day. That Sunday afternoon, however, I noticed pain in my legs. It felt like I had been working out or pulled a muscle. It was very odd because I hadn't been doing any kind of leg exercises, nor did I fall or get beaten up or anything like that. So I thought maybe because I was stationary for so long being sick, my legs are just getting used to being used again. I wasn't completely buying that, though, because they started to hurt a lot.
The next day, Monday, July 18th, I went back to work. My legs hurt really badly. I was hobbling around like a gimp. The first thing my co-worker said to me when she saw me was, "Are you walking funny?" I thought I could hide it, but it was pretty obvious that I was in a lot of pain. And it just got worse throughout the day. Looking back, I honestly can't believe I actually went to work with so much pain. When I got home that day, I immediately took a shower and went straight to bed. I was not planning on moving for the rest of the night. I hoped my pain would go away the next day and everything would be normal again. But alas, I underestimated my life.
The next day, Tuesday, July 19th the pain had not gone away. In fact, it was worse. So I called out sick from work once again. I called Pat and told him that I wasn't going into work, and I asked him if he could take me to the doctor when he was out from work. Pat, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, insisted on taking me right then. He didn't like the sound of my condition and feared that it could be blood clots, something that I hadn't even thought of. So off we went to the UCLA ER.
When I arrived, I did all the necessary formalities, filled out paper work, waited in the waiting room, answered a bunch of general questions, and after about maybe 30 minutes I was wheeled into the ER room where doctors examined me and listened to what I had to say. I was given an ultrasound by the sweetest little lady. They also did a bunch of bloodwork on me and checked my INR levels. I don't know what INR stands for, but it's basically the thinness of my blood. I'm on a blood thinner called Coumadin, and when you're on Coumadin you have to get your blood checked every month to make sure it's at your targeted range. My target range is between 2 and 3. The higher the number, the thinner your blood. The last time I got my blood checked was the day after coming back from Houston, and my INR was at 2.8. So that was good.
Hours later, the results of my tests came back. According to the ultrasound, I did have a blood clot in my right leg, below my knee. Well, shit. That still didn't explain why my left leg hurt as well. Because supposedly, there were no clots in my left leg. Even more shocking was my INR. It was at 10! Which meant my blood was dangerously thin. It also seemed like an oxymoron because why would I form a blood clot if my blood was so thin? That one had the doctors scratching their heads.
Needless to say, I was admitted into the hospital that night around 9:00. They hooked me up to all the machines and I soon found myself in a position where I had been so many times before. (No, not missionary, unfortunately - get your head out of the gutter!) But back in the hospital. Back to being nursed back to health.
The next day, Wednesday, July 19th, my mom flew in from Houston to be with me. Let me just say that I have the greatest mom in the whole wide world. If I could be half the mother my mom is, I would already be ahead of the game. I am so lucky to have the parents that I have, and to have the support that I do from my family. Throughout the day I spoke to several different doctors and specialists and after all of them put their heads together, this is what they came up with. They think the clot formed weeks ago, before my INR levels dropped. They think the combination of traveling (sitting in the same position for several hours), my heart condition (under developed valve, plus three open heart surgeries for those of you who don't know), and just having a relatively inactive lifestyle (nice way of calling me lazy) caused the clot. In addition to all of that, they ran a test on my blood and found out that I have an antibody that predisposes me to getting blood clots. I forgot what it was called, and I'm in too much pain to go find the doctor's paper work, but basically that means there's something in my genetics that increases my likelihood of getting clots. This antibody is rare in most people, and it doesn't even have to to do with my heart condition, either. I am just lucky, I guess. So because of all those factors, I formed a clot.
My INR levels dropped because of two reasons. 1) During the week I was sick and throwing up and having chorro, I was not getting the necessary nutrients (mainly vitamin K) needed for my blood to stay at a normal level. I was still taking Coumadin at this time, and Coumadin is a very sensitive and infamously unpredictable drug. So since I was throwing up all the time, but still taking Coumain, it was as if I was only taking Coumadin and had nothing else to counteract it, so to speak, thus increasing its effect. Does that make sense? And 2) the Ciprofloxacin I was on did not play nice with Coumadin. Turns out, Cipro increases the effect of Coumadin. Fun stuff! So that explained my INR levels. They still can't explain why my left leg hurts, though. I'm not convinced that there's not a clot in my left leg. But the doctors insist there's not. It's just one of life's little mysteries, I guess.
Basically, as my friend Chandra put it, it was just a perfect storm of circumstances that got me in this situation. Nothing could have been prevented, unfortunately. The doctors decided that the best plan of action was to do nothing. They thought it was too dangerous to do any invasive procedure, and they didn't feel the clot was a big threat. Although it hurts like hell, it's small and below my knee, so the likelihood of it traveling into my heart and lungs is very small. They said for me to just wait for it to dissolve on its own. When it's gone, the pain will stop, too. This apparently could take anywhere from a few weeks to months! That is what kills me the most! The thought of living with this excruciating pain for a month makes me want to chop my legs off!! I can be legless. Not a big deal, right? I can get one of those motorized chairs that fat people use! It'll be awesome! ::sigh:: No, no. I must deal.
I came home from the hospital last night around 10:00. I popped a Vicodin (my new best friend) and knocked out for the night. The plan for the future is to increase my target INR range to 2.5 - 3.5. Hopefully with a higher dosage of Coumadin, I won't form any clots. In addition to that, I must now be more active in my daily activities to increase blood flow in my legs. Since I'm a receptionist, I pretty much sit on my ass all day. I am now instructed to stand up every hour at my desk and do some leg stretches and possibly take a walk around the office if it's not too busy. I also need to take a brisk walk on my lunch break.
So that's that! It still hurts for me to stand and walk. Seriously it's pain I've never felt before in my life! I want to cry every time I have to walk to the bathroom. The sucky thing is, the doctors want me to move around as much as I am capable to increase blood flow. It's a vicious cycle!!! When I'm on the pain killer, it's almost tolerable. Walking still hurts, but the recovery period is much faster. Without the pain killers, my legs pretty much hurt almost all the time. So that's where I'm at now. I will keep you updated as the days go by. My follow up appointment is in one week. I hope I am at least able to stand without any pain because the thought of walking from my building to my car and then from the car to the doctor's office is scaring the crap out of me!
I want to thank all my friends and family who have been so sweet and supportive of me. I feel very loved and very lucky to have you all in my life. It's ironic that I feel the luckiest when unlucky things happen to me.
Kim! I am so glad this is an old blog post. I hope you're completely healed up and painless again! Jeeze! *shudders*
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