I guess I'm not quite out of material for this blog yet.
I barely slept last night: A. because I was stressed and B. because my leg hurt quite a bit. I had a book club meeting, which is really more of a girls' night in with some of my neighborhood friends/fellow moms. We mostly just eat and drink wine, with a little bit of book talk thrown in. My friend, colleague, and neighbor hosted this month's book club. Her house is five blocks away, and I was determined to walk there with one of my other book club buddies, who lives up the street from me. I ALMOST backed out of walking because I wasn't feeling stellar when I got back from PT, but then I decided to suck it up, mostly to give me the option of drinking wine freely :). I brought a crutch with me, but I ended up carrying it the whole way there, and back! That is the good news. The bad news is that my leg hurt quite a bit when I got back, and somehow the pain + the wine + the stress made for a pretty sleepless night.
Needless to say, I was reeeeaaallly tired when I got up this morning and had to drag myself to my 7:45 AM ultrasound appointment. But, I figured that I would just come home afterward and take a nap, seeing as how the rest of my family is still camping. Unfortunately, my morning unraveled in a very different way than I had imagined.
During the ultrasound, I tried to follow what the tech was doing, but like I've mentioned before, I can never make sense of those things. So instead of watching the screen, I watched the tech's face for telltale signs of... something. She seemed a little concerned throughout the ultrasound, although I couldn't tell if it was actual concern or just concentration. It turns out it was the former. When she told me she was done, I asked if she had found anything interesting. Sometimes techs will tell you stuff and sometimes they won't, but I always ask anyway. She looked at me and took a deep breath and replied, 'Yes. I did.' Then she went on to say that she found clotting, and that it was very extensive, going all the way from above my knee down most of my calf, which would explain why my leg hurts and is so swollen. After that she added, 'That's the bad news.' I asked what the good news was, and she said, 'It's a really good thing we caught this.'
She called my doctor, who wasn't in, and after some ado, she sent me to the ER to get treated, along with a diagram of where the clotting was and a CD of the ultrasound. The ER involved quite a bit of waiting, although I've definitely had worse ER waits. Eventually, I saw a PA, then the physician on duty, who was communicating with the physician on call for my surgeon. The PA told me I was going to get a shot of an anticoagulant, Lovenox, in my stomach, and after that I would need to administer the shots to myself twice a day. I would also need to modify my diet substantially (e.g., cut out leafy greens, wtf?) and have my blood drawn for testing every week. I think I sat there staring at her with my mouth open. Because then she added that there was actually an alternative; I could take a tablet twice a day with no changes to my diet and no need to draw blood. So of course, I'm thinking, Are you crazy? Do you even have to ASK which one I'd prefer?! Until she added, 'The only problem with the tablet is that insurance companies don't like to pay for it, and it's very expensive.' She asked what insurance I had, and when I told her, she said they were actually pretty good about paying for the tablet medication, but that it might still be $300-$400. I decided that I didn't care; I would consider it $400 well spent, and the next time I am miserable at work, I will remind myself that I am working so I don't have to inject myself in the f-ing stomach twice a day. OMG.
Eventually I got the shot, and it was super unpleasant, let me tell you. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't already decided to suck it up and pay whatever it took to avoid the shots, I would have changed my mind after the shot. It wasn't as bad as the cortisone injection, but it pretty much sucked, and I seriously can't imagine inflicting that on myself. Once a week, maybe, but two times a day?! Uh, no thanks. And, the good news is that it turns out I have pretty stellar insurance, and the medication, rivaroxaban/Xarelto, only cost me $50, so it was a good decision.
So, to sum it up.
Bad news: Extensive clotting with the risk of it traveling to my lungs, heart, kidneys, or brain, and killing me. LOL. Lots of swelling and pain. Though apparently not as much pain as this should be causing, which is likely why it took so long to figure out. The PA actually prescribed oxycodone for pain. Seriously, it doesn't hurt that bad, which is apparently why I passed the surgeon's blood clot test with such flying colors, and no one has been worried about this for the past four weeks.
Good news: Lucky to have caught this. Thank God for my observant and competent PT assistant and my PT. And thank God, too, for good insurance. And, I guess, thank God I finally have an explanation for this pain that has been plaguing on and off since 1 Week + 1 Day post-surgery. Apparently it is going to take a long time for the clotting to resolve and for the pain to go away, but at least knowing what it is makes it a little easier to deal with.
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