...and waiting

I had been having pain in my left leg for two weeks.  I assumed that it was some kind of pulled muscle either due to an overzealous yoga move or just uncoordinated clumsiness.  I kept telling myself, if it doesn’t get better by ____ then I should probably go see the doctor.  On Saturday June 2^nd the pain began to amp up considerably.  I took Motrin before bed. It didn’t help.  By Sunday morning my left calf was red, warm to the touch and there was something sore and swollen underneath my skin.  My leg felt like it was on fire and every time I stood up and walked a sharp pain shot up my leg. I decided that it might be a good idea to go to the Urgent Care just to make sure it wasn’t anything serious.  The urgent care doctor examined my leg for a few seconds and informed me that it was a blood clot and that I had to go to the emergency room right away to have an ultrasound of my leg.  The nurse gave me a big dose of aspirin and sent me on my way.  I have to give the Cross Keys Urgent Care a big thumbs up.  I was in and out quickly and everyone there was polite, professional and super nice. I would definitely go there again.   

Off to Kennedy in Washington Township I went.

At the hospital, I was moved through triage quickly, partly to my dismay because a girl had come in who had gotten into some kind of fight at a concert and I wanted to hear more about her shenanigans, partly I was relieved because there was a girl sitting near me with two trash cans next to her indicating that she was feeling barfy and I didn’t want to be witness to said barf.  The triage nurse asked the usual questions and then a rather handsome med tech escorted me to my room.  I went through the regular drill of changing and having an IV placed.  They asked me if I wanted any pain medication.  I always have mixed feelings about how I answer.  I have a high tolerance for pain and pain medication tends to make me throw up so I have to decide if the pain relief is worth the upchucking and in this case it didn’t seem worth the risk.  I hate declining the pain medication however because I feel like they don’t take you quite so seriously (or at least that has happened in the past).  A nice attendant wheeled me down to ultrasound where the compassionate ultrasound tech kindly wrapped me in pre-warmed blankets. I was fascinated since I have never had an ultrasound that wasn’t of my abdomen.  The part that I didn’t like was when she turned the sound on and you could hear the blood moving through my leg; for some reason that gave me the willies.

After the ultrasound I was transferred to the “results area.”  This was something new, to me anyway.  It was a small waiting area with lounge chairs.  You sit in the room with several other ER patients waiting for test results.  Every so often a pretty smiling nurse would pop in to let each person know at what stage their results were (“the doctor is reviewing your CT scan right now...your ultrasound hasn’t come back yet”…etc.).  I couldn’t decide how I felt about the results area (I realized the purpose was to free up rooms for people who had more important things going on than just waiting).  It wasn’t very HIPPA friendly as the other people knew which tests you had done. The nurse was as discrete as possible and other patients didn’t seem to mind letting everyone else know why they were there, but if you were there for something embarrassing it might not be fun.  I also felt self conscious because everyone else had CT scans of their heads so they didn’t have to change into a hospital gown.  I was the only one having to sit there wearing hospital garb and my warm blankets soon turned cold.   Once my results were back and reviewed I met with the doctor in a little private room.  I did have a big blood clot in my leg but it was only a superficial clot and they “rarely” kill people, said the doctor.  The thought was that the clot was caused by being on Lupron for an extended amount of time. The ER doctor advised me to start taking a low dose aspirin once a day to keep my blood thinned and follow up with my other doctors.

   I was still in a lot of pain when I got home so I kept my leg elevated and put heat on it.  I stayed home from work Monday and Tuesday (Law and Order SVU marathon day, hooray) and probably would have stayed home on Wednesday but I really can’t afford to use up time.  I called my endometriosis doctor/surgeon Tuesday.  She decided that I shouldn’t do the next Lupron shot and that I need to allow the current dose to wear off completely before my surgery to ensure that I won’t be at a high risk for the sort of blood clot that can kill you.  So, my surgery has to be rescheduled again.  I have to wait at least 12 weeks to be sure the Lupron is out of my system.  I can’t lie, between the pain that I was in (and the inhibited mobility since it hurt to walk) and the knowledge that I would have to wait at least 12 weeks now to have surgery and I would have to do all of the paperwork and reschedule all of the pre-surgical appointments AGAIN, I was feeling quite discouraged.  The pain has now lessened and I’m feeling more positive though there continue to be moments where I start feeling sorry for myself and dream of something really good happening to me instead of all of these perceived misfortunes.