Let me tell you our latest story. You may have heard it already... but maybe not, so I'll tell you anyway:
A few weeks ago, I started having a pain in my hip. I thought it was just a sore muscle so I thought nothing of it. As the days went on, though it just kept getting worse. On Tuesday of the following week, I ha had a terrible night, not sleeping at all. I cried most of the night. Well, that next morning, Casey called and made an appointment at a Chiropractor, and they got me in right away. Once we got there though, all of a sudden my left leg started to swell up really bad and it started to be really painful. The Chiropractor got very concerned, as did Casey and I, and he sent us to the Emergency Room. Once we got there, they did an ultra sound on my leg. After that we waited an hour or so and they came up to my room to let us know that I had a blood clot in my leg that went from below my knee all the way up to at least my hip (they couldn't see beyond that point without doing a surgery). They said that at my hip it was almost completely cut off, which is why my leg was swelling, none of the blood or fluid was going back up to my heart.
They gave me the option of either doing surgery which included: Going directly into the vein through the back of my knee, putting balloons at the beginning and end of the clot to keep it from breaking off and moving, and then injecting a very strong medicine into the vein to break up the clot. After that they would let it sit for a bit, and then put a wire in my vein which would pulsate, kind of like a whisk, and break up the clot completely. After that, they would suck it all out. They would also put in a filter at the top of the clot to make sure that if another clot were to form, it wouldn't be able to go to my heart of lung or brain. I would be on blood thinners for 6 months to make it less likely that another clot would form.
My other option was to just be on blood thinners for a while and wait for my body to absorb the clot back into itself. They said that usually takes around 6 months, and that there was no guarantee as to whether or not the clot would break off and potentially kill me. Also they had no way of knowing how far up the clot actually went without doing the surgery.
We decided surgery was best, because the other way was just sounding too dangerous, and there was too much risk of something bad happening while we waited for the clot to be absorbed. I had the surgery, stayed overnight in the ICU and had another surgery the next day. Once I was feeling up to it, Casey took me home, and for the next 5 days, he had to give me blood thinner shots in my stomach 2 times a day. It was miserable! After that I am now just taking a pill once a day for 6 months, so it's a much easier way of thinning out that blood!
I went in for my follow up surgery on Friday. They were going to take the filter out, because they checked, and no more clot had formed in my leg. Well... when they went in, they went in through my neck and went down to the filter. There is a hook on the top of the filter, so they were supposed to be able to go down and hook a string on there, put a catheder over the top (to close the filter up so it can move) and then just pull in out through my neck. Once they got inside, and down to the filter, they discovered that my clot had been so big that the filter had to be put in tilted slightly to the side, so the hook was resting against a small bit of clot that was left on the wall of my vein. Over the past few weeks, it sunk into the clot and it's now stuck there. They tried all sorts of things to pull it out but to no avail. It's part of me now! Fun times.
I'm doing much better and I'm finally back at work and such, which is really nice. Casey was amazing through the whole thing, by my side every step of the way. We also had tons of awesome people bringing us meals and things which we are SO grateful for! We have been really blessed and watched over through this whole experience and for that we are also very grateful!
Love to all!
xoxo
(p.s. sorry if this post is all over the place, I kind of took bits and pieces from different places so I hope it all makes sense!)
