Home from the hospital

[sk8pics]

Hi everyone,
I thought I would give you all a brief update to add to what DebbieS already posted.

Last Thursday evening, I woke from a nap with severe pain in my back on the right side, and every time I tried to take a deep breath, the pain would only get worse. So I couldn't catch my breath. Luckily, a friend from my church was bringing over dinner for me and she arrived not long after the pain started, took one look at me, and called 911. So, off to the hospital we went, and at the hospital they put me in a wheelchair in the waiting room!8O 8O Well I kept getting more and more uncomfortable and having more and more trouble with my breathing. My friend isn't shy and she went and bugged them about me so they brought me in sooner. Of course, my pulsox was 100% even with the shortness of breath but I guess they could still see I was in distress. Saw a doc who mentioned that I may have thrown a clot. 8O :cry: Went for a cat scan, then they did an EKG, then the doctor came back and gave me the bad news: not one but TWO blood clots in my lungs (Pulmonary Embolism). One in each lung, not big enough for the clot-busting drugs but big enough that it was very serious. They immediately started shooting me up with bloodthinners and an IV pain killer. This first doc was talking about pehaps sending me home in a day or two, on coumedin tablets but giving myself shots in the belly of this other anticoagulant. 8O

Around 3 am, the next doctor, a member of my own doc's group, came in and talked to me a long time. She reminded me a lot of Sandra Oh from Grey's Anatomy only nicer. She said, "I heard you're concerned about giving yourself shots? Well, don't worry about that because you are not going home until the coumedin is at a therapeutic level. This is very serious." Later that day they did an ultrasound of my legs and I have a big clot in my left leg, which is the one with the broken ankle. That one doesn't hurt at all.

I had to wait almost 30 hours for a room and that was not fun at all. But by Saturday evening most of the pain had gone away and I was starting to be able to breathe more easily. Still, I was upset and freaked out and I have to really applaud my nurse on Sunday, who saw how upset I was and sat with me and talked to me for a long time. What a guy.

My blood level took a long time to get into range but made it on Monday, and they kept me until tuesday to be sure. Also to keep talking to me about everything. I have to be on the coumedin for 6 months, and they are doing a lot of testing to figure out why I got such a serious problem. So far, nothing has shown up.

Anyway, I'm home and feel not too bad, although still wiped out and a bit freaked. I still have some residual pain in my back which is apparently not uncommon with PE patients. But, the more I move around the better I feel so that's good, and I'm getting around the house fine.

Tomorrow I go back to PT and start to put weight on my leg. My surgeon came to see me yesterday and he said most likely he will get me out of the boot next week and have me just use a cane to walk. So that's good news. My super nurse had told me he thought that's what would happen as soon as the surgeon heard about the clots.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words, especially Annabel.

I guess one of the things I have learned is to listen to your body! If I'd tried to ignore the pain on Thursday I could very well have died. I am thankful that I didn't and I feel very lucky and blessed.

[Isk8NYC]

((((Sk8pics))))
Wow. I'm so glad you went to the hospital and they were able to help you.
Your church friend sounds like a wonderful, smart person.

Take care and be well.

[renatele]

How scary! So glad you went to the hospital asap, and this is being taken care of.

Big hugs.

[jazzpants]

HOLY CRAP!!! I should have worried!!! Yeah, you could have died if your friend didn't get you into the hospital right away!!! 8O 8O 8O I'll bet you're saying a LOT of "thank you" prayers tonight!!! :bow: :bow: :bow:

I'm glad that you're home and healthy (or at least healthier!!!) Now get well and GET BACK ONTO THE ICE!!! We miss 'ya here!!!

(((((sk8pics)))))

[Team Arthritis]

Wonderful news that you are doing so well! Please be careful when you get back to skating on coumadin as it makes bruising MUCH worse so ALWAYS wear some head protection, pleeeaaaaassseeee :!:
Lyle

[sk8pics]

No worries, I won't be skating until I'm off the coumedin. No reason to push my luck, especially with the way my luck has been going!

thanks everyone. The support means a lot.

[TimDavidSkate]

http://media.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/1995/hugs4u.jpg

[Moto Guzzi]

(((sk8pics))) I'm glad you're back home and on your way to recovery.

[Skate@Delaware]

Wow, Pat, what a scare! I'm so glad you have such a good (and persistant) friend! Thank goodness!!! Please take care and get MUCH better!!!!

[sk8_4fun]

((((god bless))))!!!! what a scare!!!8O I hope you feel better soon,
thank goodness for your friend, I'm glad you are on the mend. Take care of yourself:)

[doubletoe]

Oh, thank goodness you are okay! You must have a very diligent guardian angel. :halo:
Best wishes for a complete recovery and no more scares!
(((HUG)))

[coskater64]

(((((yikes))))) That sounds terrifying, good thing you went to the doctor!

[sue123]

Wow, that is scary. PE is really serious, my aunt actually passed away from one, and the docs actually didnt' find them. You are extremely lucky, as the doc explained to us afterwards, they mostly find a PE when they do an autopsy 8O

Glad to hear you're OK. Do they think the surgery caused it? I know that surgery puts you at risk for blood clots, and it's possible that one could have traveled from your leg to your lung. Take care of yourself!

[Clare]

Gosh, sounds like you have had a very scary few days :( Take care of yourself and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Clare

[TashaKat]

(((((sk8pics)))))

It's good to hear that you're on the mend but that must have been one scary time for you. Look after yourself and take loads of care.

It's weird because I was just out with my friend who recommended that 'at my age' I should think of starting to take half an aspirin a day. I laughed at her (at my age indeed :twisted: ) but after reading this I think that she may just have a point!

Anyway, heal quickly and a good lesson for everyone, don't ignore your body!

Take care x

[sk8pics]

Thanks, everyone. Sue123-- Yes, they think they clots broke off from one in my leg, and probably it was the relative inactivity as a result of the surgery. You can get a clot in your leg even on a long plane or car ride, if you have some risk factors and don't move around enough. They found my clots with a CAT scan and then an ultrasound of my leg. I did't think they were necessarily hard to find, but maybe it depends on the right combinatio of symptoms, history and testing, and the location and size of the clots. They'll do another ultrasound of my leg in 6 months to see if it all dissolved or not. It may not. Apparently sometimes they just harden and stay there and that is supposed to be okay. It's a little freaky to me but they said lots of people are walking around with such clots and never know it. But this way they'll know the status of my leg in case I ever have something similar, and the presence of a pre-existing clot won't mislead them.

[Terri C]

(((Holy Cow!!)))
Pat, if I'm correct, it's Lovenox that you give yourself shots in the belly for.
I'm guessing your doctors will be having prothrombin tests drawn to ensure that it doesn't happen again?
Take care of yourself and continue to listen to your body!

[mikawendy]

{{{Pat}}} hugs to you. I'm so glad you're home safe from the hospital and that you didn't try to "tough" it out at home through the pain! And we're all glad to see you posting here again.

[looplover]

Whoa, that's scary - so glad you got it treated right away - I hope you have a speedy recovery!!!

[dbny]

(((((Pat)))))

I was totally 8O 8O 8O when I saw the title of this thread. Having been away for 10 days with no communications at all, I hadn't yet read all of the weekly practice thread and didn't know you were in the hospital in the first place :roll:.

I'm so glad you caught it right away and are on the mend once again. I have a very good friend who threw a clot to the lungs while she was on ERT. She recovered completely, as I'm sure you will.

[Morgail]

So scary! But I'm glad you're ok. Gets lots of rest and take care of yourself. I hope they find out why you had those clots.

[miraclegro]

Wow, i've not read the threads in a couple of days. I am glad you had such a good friend who took things into her hands right away.

Are blood clots very common in broken ankle patients? That is something i'd not ever thought about! I broke mine in January and i have never heard of anything like that. God was watching out for you!

[Thin-Ice]

So good to hear you're doing better. You know a lot of people here are thinking lots of good thoughts for you and thanking your friend who insisted you go to the hospital (doesn't actually sound like you had a choice with a friend like that!!!:halo: )

And when you have time in the next couple of days, you should really write a note to the Director of Nursing at the hospital and praise that nurse who took the time to stay with you so long. They work very hard, are usually incredibly overloaded and don't receive enough credit when they do something that really makes a difference for a patient.. and that kind of time can make it so hard for them to get everything else done during their regular shift.

Best wishes for a speedy and painless recovery!

[Mrs Redboots]

Oh, my poor one! What an awful thing to happen. I'm really thankful your friend realised it was serious and got you to hospital in time.

So next time you come to the European competitions, I have just two words for you: compression stockings!

[sk8pics]

Thank you so much everyone! Now to answer some comments/questions directly,

Thin-ice: I actually know the CEO of the whole hospital complex and i am planning to write to him and let him know what was good and bad. I did that last time and I know he passed the info on because my orthopedist knew all about my email to Bob. I totally agree with your comments on nursing; Jamie is an angel and told me he knows it's not just the physical he has to take care of, but also the patients' emotional state.

Miraclegro -- It's not unheard of to get a clot after surgery for a broken bone, but the unusual thing here was how serious mine was. If it were more common, I'm sure they would be doing ultrasounds of the affected limb a few weeks after surgery in, let's say, over 40 year old patients.

Terri-- Yes, it was lovenox that were shooting me up with twice a day. It wasn't that bad, most of the nurses were very good at giving the shots (maybe because it was a cardiac unit that I was on). And I will have blood tests for INR once or twice a week for several weeks and then once a month until I'm off the coumadin. There's not much of any chance of me getting another clot right now because my blood is very thin.

That's it for now! Thanks again everyone. Oh and yes, I told my friend she saved my life!

[montanarose]

Thank goodness your friend got you to the hospital in time! I am all too familiar with this subject since my husband nearly died in 2002 from a particular type of blood clot - a "saddle embolus" -- thrown to his lungs from clots in his legs. He was in the ICU for 48 hours while they administered the clot-busting drug TPA -- sort of an enzymatic "Drano" which dissolved the clots in his lungs as well as his legs.

But I'm not writing this just to share the gory details of my husband's ordeal with you but rather what happened down the road a bit. After his six months on coumadin were up, his doctor recommended that he be tested for the possibility of an underlying genetic defect that might have set him up for this thing in the first place. Sure enough, out of three possible genetic mutations that can possibly influence coagulation, he had two of them. As a result, he'll be on coumadin the rest of his life -- not a bad trade-off, all in all, considering what a close call he had and the thought of it happening again.

Don't worry (if you do) about your six months on coumadin -- the main thing we found is that it doesn't matter so much what you eat, or what vitamins/supplements you take (although staying away from vitamin K is a good idea), it's more important that you're reasonably consistent in your intake. As my husband's doctor said, it's not so much a matter of not eating spinach or other greens at all, but rather not going out and gorging on a huge spinach salad when you haven't been eating any salads at all! I think you'll find that as long as your diet is consistent, your pro-time readings will be easily stabilized and you'll breeze through your six months.

Feel free to e-mail me if you want any additional info on the genetic stuff, or DVT in general (I learned waaaaaaaaay more than I ever wanted to 8O on this subject).

Ellen

[sk8pics]

Wow, Ellen! My clots weren't big enough for the clot-busting drugs. And the doctor did some genetic testing and they want to do more. It's possible I have something but I sure hope not because I would prefer not to be on coumadin for the rest of my life.

Your comments about consistency in my diet are just what the doctors told me. So I'm not too freaked out about that. I do know that as I feel better, though, my diet is going to shift, so I'll talk to my doc about that. Right now, I don't have much of an appetite and I don't have that much control over what I am eating, but that will change soon. They did tell me no vitamins, though. I'll let you know if I come up with more questions! Thanks!

[Debbie S]

They did tell me no vitamins, though. And if you take Viactiv calcium chews, they have Vitamin K.

That's great that you started to walk today! Tell us about it! :D

I assumed the clots were caused by inactivity. After all, you've been out of commission for over a month, and that's a long time. If you've never had clots before, I can't imagine you suddenly developed something that's lifelong...then again, I'm not a doctor, so what do I know? :halo:

Think happy thoughts! :)

[sue123]

There's a hockey player who is recovering from a PE. They found it in July or August, I believe, and now he's starting playing again. He's been doing contact practice, and is now doing a conditioning stint in the AHL before coming back to the NHL. So it's totally possible to come back from this, although it may take a while.

[Isk8NYC]

HOORAY! THIS IS GREAT NEWS!
Today, Dec. 14, I started to walk again!

[AW1]

Oh my Goodness! So glad to hear you seem to be on the mend. I'll bet that was the scariest experience of your life!

[sk8pics]

And if you take Viactiv calcium chews, they have Vitamin K.

That's great that you started to walk today! Tell us about it! :D

I assumed the clots were caused by inactivity. After all, you've been out of commission for over a month, and that's a long time. If you've never had clots before, I can't imagine you suddenly developed something that's lifelong...then again, I'm not a doctor, so what do I know? :halo:


It's amazing all the things you can't take if you're on coumadin! But I will adjust. And time will tell if I have a genetic abnormality or something else to explain this.

About walking: my back was hurting me enough that I didn't want to hop so, although I'd been planning to wait until PT to try walking, I figured what the heck. So I just started putting my left foot on the floor and still using the walker. I limped across the room and it didn't hurt my foot. So I walked into PT that way, too. My physical therapist and i had a long talk about the emboli, and what he could and couldn't do, and then we worked on my gait. I was doing it fine, he said, and just needed to try and bring my right foot through to in front of my left, instead of just parallel with it. So by the time I was leaving I had that down too. I'm still slow, of course, but at least my arms don't have to bear all my weight any more. I occasionally still hop to turn around or something like that, but my hopping days are pretty much over, hooray!

[Patsy]

Holy Cow! Take care of yourself and a big hug to your friend!

(now returning to non-skating lurkdom)