Wow what a weird couple of weeks!
Three weeks ago after a great night of Whirlyball and Lasertag I got home and found I had a swelling below my calf. I looked up possibly causes of the swelling and pain and saw "DVT" (deep venous thrombosis) the condition my mother died of so I looked into it. I noticed I didn't have many of the symptoms, but a few of them. I went to the hospital the next morning to get it checked out and after some prodding convince the doctor do to a sonogram on my leg to check for clots since the initial blood work came back negative. They performed the sonogram and only found a SVT "superficial" clot - nothing to worry about, just take aspirin they said.
The next few days my calf got better but the area behind my knee became more and more painful. I went to my regular doctor who checked me out, but since I wasn't showing any outward signs of further clotting told me to stay on the aspirin just in case. She was perplexed by there being no obvious reason for the first clot so she decided to run an intense array of blood tests to see if I had any blood diseases that might have caused it.
Within a few days the pain in my leg stopped and all signs of the original clot were gone... except on thing - I had this little pricking pain in my side, in my chest. I didn't know what it was but I decided if it remained overnight I'd call my doctor again. (At this point I was feeling like a hypochondriac - I never get sick, have never been the hospital, etc). I went to work the next day and the pain was the same - I called my doctor and left a message for her. Within an hour she called back panicked - she said she got my results back and I have a blood disorder called "Protein S deficiency" and the pain in my chest was a likely a pulmonary embolism and that I should get to the ER immediately. I did so, was taken in immediately, given a CAT scan of my chest and discovered that I didn't just have a pulmonary embolism, but "lots" to use the doctor's words, as well as 3 DVTs in my leg. He told me if I had been overweight or a smoker I likely would already be dead considering how many embolisms I had.
Strangest thing was that despite a little chest pain I didn't feel sick at all! I couldn't have known how dangerous of a situation I was in and never would have even checked out the initial clot had my mother not passed away from a DVT.
I was hospitalized that day and by that night, I was in such intense pain the gravity of the situation hit me. Every little breath caused pain like an ice pick being stabbed into my chest. Eventually blood thinners and pain meds made me feel better, but I was hospitalized for a week to ween me on to my new blood thinners - something I'll have to take the rest of my life now.
So it was an interesting couple of weeks - my first hospital stay, my first IV, my first CAT scan, my first blood clot (that I knew of). I am well for now but it will take nearly 3 months for the DVTs in my legs and the clots in my lungs to completely dissolve so I am still at risk. I try not to think about it though and just go on with life (with a few modifications due to my risk factors).
