thrombophilia

Or as I like to call it, unfortunate illness #731.

On the night of August 1 I landed myself a 9 day stay in the beautiful Alta Bates hospital ante-partum unit. Alex and I were having dinner with friends at Greg and Brad's apartment and right before I was ready to dig into my peanut butter cup ice cream I stood up to illustrate a point of the story I was telling and noticed that my left leg felt wrong. Wrong like "hmmmm, why can't I feel anything in my leg?" Wrong like dead weight. Wrong like this can't be good. So I excused myself and wandered off to the bathroom, assuming that the baby was to blame for all of this (I'm starting so early). I figured he must have been sitting on nerve or something and if I walked around he would move and my leg issue would be resolved. When I got to the bathroom I took a peek at my leg and it was then I noticed it was swollen and a tad on the bluish side. Trying my best not to panic I washed my face, shook my leg a little and went back to the dining room. I ate one spoonful of ice cream, trying to ignore my leg, but I couldn't, so I quietly alerted Alex to the fact that I thought we should leave because something dreadful was happening to me. He suggested we move into the living room and I put my leg up, but by the time I reached the living room I knew that I needed do more with the leg than just put it up, purple toes are never a good sign. Ice cream abandonment is not a common trait for me, so everyone took me quite seriously when I said we had to leave. Alex and I rushed home and got on the phone with the OB on call and he gave me two choices: 1. Put my leg up and wait for it go away or 2. Go to the ER. I chose the latter. I figured I would be heading the hospital that night anyways, might as well be sooner than later.

So off to the ER we went and finally by 3:30am I was suited up with a nice open backed hospital johnnie and a steady IV of heparin. No one knew what was wrong with me quite yet, but after a slew of tests we found out the baby was doing great and I most likely had a blood clot in my leg, but more tests were waiting for me at 9am.

After meeting my daytime nurses and picking through my breakfast of French toast and fruit I was wheeled down on a gurney to the vascular lab where an ultrasound of my leg revealed a blood clot that ran from my groin to the back of my knee. I was officially diagnosed with DVT, deep vein thrombosis. Instead of being terrified I was relieved that I finally had an answer to why my leg was ailing and that it wouldn't hurt the baby. I was thrilled that this all happened before Saturday, because otherwise it could have all happened on a 6 hour flight to Boston, perhaps resulting in death. I was elated that this clot was discovered before pieces of it broke off and landed in my lungs. So sad to be bedridden, yet so happy to know why. I was handed a bunch of literature on how to deal with my new condition and every single one pictured fellow DVT suffers... all over 60.

It was a tough 9 days in the hospital. For the first 3 days I wasn't allowed to even get up and use the bathroom. I can't think of too many things that are more humiliating than using a bedpan, other than having your own urine spill from a bedpan forcing the nurses to give you a sponge bath and change your clothes and sheets while you just lie there. That's no fun. No fun at all. Having blood drawn every 5 hours also is no party, it left my arms looking like this. I could go on and on and I'm sure as the memories come flooding back to me I'll post more about my hospital hijinx, but I'd rather not re-visit those days right now. The rest of the month has been a steady diet of modified bed rest, working from home and little walking. I might lose my mind.

To sum it all up, the baby is okay, I'm okay and the clot is gone, thanks to the two daily injections of Lovenox I get to shove in my gut. This week I finally got permission to leave my home and drive a car, all by myself! So even though I have to take it easy I'm just about ready to return to my (somewhat) normal life. And wait for the next unfortunate illness to surprise me and Alex.