And Now I Have A Blood Clot

As I mentioned in my last post I have had pain in my left calf since the pain medication wore off after my surgery, it felt like I pulled a muscle which I knew I did not do.  I really just figured I was walking weird because of the swelling in my knee and not being able to bend my knee and maybe that was why there was pain but that really didn't make sense for the amount of pain I was feeling either.  Blood clot did cross my mind a few times since I was taking birth control pills prior to surgery and no one told me to stop taking them until I had my lab work done about 6 days prior to surgery, you're supposed to stop birth control pills at least 14 days prior to surgery because of the risk of blood clots.  The other reason blood clot crossed my mind is that I get this whooshing feeling in my foot every so often, I don't know if that would make sense to anyone else or not but it almost felt like the blood flow is stopped for a while then all of a sudden it's let passed and that's the whoosh I feel in my foot.

So anyway, today I had my post op check to get the stitches out.  I had very little visible swelling (it still feels like it is swelling inside) last night and this morning and the pain in my calf was nearly gone.  When the nurse asked if I had been having any pain I mentioned that I had no knee pain but a little pain in my calf and just discomfort in my knee from the swelling but that it gets better every day.  Then the physician assistant Amanda came in and I told her about the calf pain and she said it was likely nothing but that there was an off chance it could be a blood clot so she wanted to send me for an ultra sound.  She tried to get me in for the in office ultra sound but apparently it was not working or not available so she scheduled me across the street at 5pm at the hospital so we went back this evening.

I had a great chat about Santa and Christmas and our kids with the tech doing my ultra sound and when she finished with the ultra sound I was truly shocked when she said I had a clot.  I asked if she was joking and she said no, she said she wasn't supposed to tell me but that we had such a good chat that she really wanted me to know.  I asked what they normally do and she said 90% of the time they admit and administer blood thinners and monitor blood levels or something.  She said she was going to contact my doctor and find out what he wanted to do and she'd let me know but that I could go out and tell Jerry.

About 10 minutes later she came out and said I was the lucky 10%, that my doctor wanted me to go across the street to his office and someone would be there to give me an injection and further instructions.  Apparently if I had been admitted I would not have been released in time for Christmas.  I'm still a little leery of not being in a hospital and having a blood clot but my best guess is that I've had this clot for a week now and I haven't been in a hospital this whole time so I'll be fine.

So we went across the street and PA Amanda was waiting for us, she had an injection of Lovenox and a phone number for a cardiologist.  She was so relieved she sent me for the ultra sound, she said that 10 other patients could have the same complaint and it would be nothing and she really thought that mine was nothing but that's why they always send patients to be checked.  The Lovenox is an injection in the belly and it hurts!  Apparently it's a daily injection and I am not looking forward to this, but I have to call the cardio tomorrow at 8 to make an appointment ASAP so we don't need to do the injection tomorrow until we talk to him.  I'll have blood work done tomorrow and probably be put on more medication (I can't remember the name of it) and then be on probably weekly visits to the lab for blood work for 6 months and medication/injections for up to 6 months.

And here's a lovely piece of info Amanda gave me...the Lovenox they happened to have on hand was turned in by a lady whose husband died and no longer needed it, it's sealed syringes so they are safe but she turned them in so they could have them on hand in case someone needed them....lovely to be reminded that someone died of this.

Oh and Zachary started throwing up at around 3pm...we think he has a stomach bug *sigh*