Yesterday, at work, I wasn’t felling very well. I was nauseous, I was lightheaded, my left arm was tingly, I was short of breath, and there was pressure in my chest. I had an ambulance called, and I went to Barnes Jewish Hospital to be checked out. I was hooked up to an EKG in the ambulance. My heartbeat was irregular in the ambulance, skipping between about 70 beats per minute and 110, but by the time I got to Barnes, it was normal. Barnes’ EKG showed no irregularity, and it showed I hadn’t had a heart attack. I was very happy about that!
However, given my symptoms, the nice doctors at Barnes did want to run a lot of tests. For that, they had to get 4 vials of blood out of me. I have small veins, and they tend to roll. Which is why today, I’m still covered in bruises. They could barely get any blood out of me at all, and they even resorted to trying veins in my hand and my thumb to try to get the blood they needed. They did finally mange to get all they needed for testing, but not before making me scream in pain more than once. When they ran the tests, the D-Dimer test was positive, which means I was positive for a substance in my blood that occurs when a blood clot breaks down. That won me a trip to X-ray and a CT scan.
For those of you who haven’t had one before, a CT scan isn’t terribly frightening as a concept. The technicians run you through a donut-shaped machine which runs X-rays through you to get images of your organs. Sounds innocuous, right? It’s not. In order to get good pictures, it turns out they have to inject you with a contrast-dye, which runs through your veins like liquid fire, rushing through your body, and causing you, if you’re me, to convulse and scream in agony. It was like nothing I’d felt before, and I’d prefer to never have to feel it again.
CT and X-ray results turned out negative, as did a follow up blood test. If I had a clot, and I think I must have had one in order to have caused the first positive result on the D-Dimer test, then it had broken up and gone away. The doctor at Barnes said it could also have been a random arrhythmia. I find the clot scenario more likely, as I’ve been having swelling in my ankles lately, which is an indicator that one is at risk for clots. I got out of the hospital late last night. I am still tired and sore from the experience, though the fatigue is probably more emotional than physical. I have a follow up appointment with my regular doctor on Friday to see what to do next. Meanwhile, my plan is to stay well-hydrated, move my legs often, try not to stay still for too many hours at a time, and take one aspirin each morning, as I feel that one aspirin a day can’t really harm me. I will be doing all I can to try to keep this from happening again.
Sue is a student of history and a walking card catalog. If she doesn't know something, odds are she can tell you where to find the information. She writes in her spare time.
