Tag Archives: PE blood clot

God’s Not Finished With Me Yet!!!

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Hello everyone!  Hope everything is going well your way!  Mine has been very interesting to say the least.  Not something that I would like to relive…ever!

It began in March when I began to feel not – so- great.  I was in the middle of a flare from my Crohn’s Disease.  I was kinda getting nervous because I knew in another month our family was scheduled to go on vacation in Las Vegas and I didn’t want to be in the middle of a flare.  I went ahead and took the maximum amount of steroids that I could take and that took care of my energy, however, I still felt a pain in my right side.  I can live with that, right?? 

During this time, my mother – in – law had been in the hospital for multiple issues.  On one particular day I was feeling better with my flare and decided to visit her in the rehabilitation unit she was in.  While I was there, she received some bad news of a set back and she needed to be transported to big Barnes to get some testing done.  All of the sudden, I felt an all to familiar pain in my back but I kept it to myself because I was trying to be strong for my mother- in-law.  When I got home, I laid down for a while and the pain subsided a little but was still there.  In the morning, I called my doctor and described my pain to her over the phone.  She told me since I have a history of these, my best bet would be to go straight to the ER.  I did and I was right – I had developed another blood clot in my right lung again!  This would make the 3rd PE blood clot in a year!  God definitely has something bigger and better in store for me! I was in the hospital for 3 days.  Need I remind you that my mother – in – law was still in the hospital also, therefore, my husband had his wife and mother in two different hospitals at the same time!  He could get no rest, bless his heart!  I was put on Coumadin again.  Now, Vegas was really getting too close for comfort to have any hiccups!

Vegas was fun, however the first day I was there, either I twisted my right knee or my arthritis was really acting up.  I mean I was in a lot of pain with this knee and could barely walk the rest of the time there!  To subside the pain, I took a lot of Advil that I had brought with me and that still really didn’t work.  I tried not to let that stop me from having a great time but it was always there with me.  The day after we got back from Vegas, I noticed a lot of blood in my bag and was kind of frightened with what I saw.  My home health nurse came that day to check my PT/INR and other blood tests as well as to change my dressing.  She just about freaked when my PT/INR turned out to be 7.3!  The normal range for me is 2 -3.  My blood was extremely thin and she told me to not get cut or fall or else I could bleed to death!  When she changed my dressing, she noticed that my stitches had somehow popped again and my catheter was just hanging there!  I just got this thing replaced back in February and now it has popped again!  That turned out to be the least of my worries..

That night I continued to lose a lot of blood through my ostomy bag.  I felt light-headed and dizzy and my heart raced when I stood up.  I continued to feel this way throughout the night and into the morning.  That next morning, my home health nurse called and told me that my hemoglobin (blood) count was an 8.1 and that I should go to the ER (normal range is 12-15).  She told me that the doctors usually order a blood transfusion at 8.0.  My GI doctor also got these results and she told me to go to an ER pronto!  I went to the nearest one to my house.  I really shouldn’t have driven in the state I was in but I was okay sitting down and driving, it was when I had to walk from the parking lot into the hospital where I had problems.  They got me settled in an ER bed and gave me a unit of blood because now my blood count had dropped to a 6.8!  About 45 mins later, I lost a lot of blood through my bag by emptying it 3 times in a row!  The second time, I nearly passed out, thank Heavens I had a friend sitting with me that could notify someone!  During this time, my ostomy bag decided it had enough and it blew!  I literally was sitting in a pool of blood!  It looked like I was a victim in a crime scene!  I broke down while I was trying to clean myself up because I was’t feeling well and this was a lot to deal with at this time.  An all-time low for me..I just wanted to go home and jump in the bath.  The ER doctors decided that they couldn’t do much more for me so I was to be transported by ambulance to SLU Hospital in St. Louis.  I waited forever until a bed was ready at the hospital then had to waited a long time for an ambulance to take me..

When I got to the hospital, it was 12:30am.  They drew some more blood and this time my blood count was at an all-time low of 5.3!  I was losing blood pretty rapidly.  Early the next morning, I received 2 units of blood.  They diagnosed me with an active GI bleed.  That day they scheduled me for an endoscopy and colonoscopy so they could try and find out where the bleeding was coming from.  They couldn’t find anywhere that I was losing all this blood.  Ultimately they decided to chalk it up to the combination of the Coumadin I was on along with the massive amounts of Advil I took for my aching knee in Vegas.  That day I learned not to mix Coumadin and Advil!  They kept me there to monitor my blood count and to make sure it wasn’t going to go down anymore.  My blood count kept around 7.0-7.5.  When I was released last night, my count was 7.4.  I still have a way to get to the normal count of 12-15 but I am trying to eat foods that are rich in iron so that I can get my strength back.  Right now I am pretty weak, just taking a little bit at a time, but I’ll make it!  Before they released me, they sutured up my catheter so I wouldn’t have to go to another hospital to get it done.  Again, my mother – in – law is still in the hospital/rehab and my husband again had his wife and mother at different hospitals at the same time!  These past 2 months has been boogers for our family to say the least!!

Please pray for our family, we need all we can get at this time..I am so blessed to have such a great support system!

Chow for now!

Kelly

2nd round with the blood clot

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Hello everyone, hope things are going well your way!  My life is a little better now (knock on wood) but I have gone through another ordeal since we talked last.  In this post I will tell you what is currently going on in my life!

I’m going to say it was a month ago when one night, out of the blue, after eating supper, I started not feeling so well.  However, that night I promised my daughter that we would go to the movies.  I started feeling nauseous before we left for the movie so I took a zofran before we left.  During the movies, I started having diarrhea and missed a lot of the movie!  Also, for some reason both my arms started aching badly, not the muscle but in the bone.  It was late when we got back so my daughter went straight to bed and my arms started aching more and more by the minute.  I tried to go to sleep, however, I could only sleep 30 minutes at a time before the pain in my arms would wake me up.  I got up to walk around to see if there were any shortness of breath and I could breath okay but my heart just ached and it was beating faster than normal.  I also felt warm so I checked my temperature and it was 100 degrees.  I walked the floor for a while before I took a pain pill just to get some sleep..before I went to sleep, I wrote my husband a note telling him that if something happens to me, this is what I was experiencing and this is what I did for it!

The next day, my Home Health nurse came to change my dressing and draw some blood.  I told her what I experienced the night before.  She had to call my primary doctor to tell her about my PT/INR so she mentioned to her what I told her.  My Primary doctor called me later and asked if I could get an x-ray at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis then come to her office for a visit.  So off to St. Louis I go to get the x-ray!  At the hospital, I overheard the radiology technicians discussing the x-ray so I knew it wasn’t good before I got to the doctor’s office, I was just hoping it wouldn’t be too bad.  At my doctor’s, she told me that the x-ray showed what she thought looked like pneumonia.  She took a look at it again and told me it could also be another clot!  She wanted me to go to the ER at Mercy and get some more tests ran to determine what exactly it was.

I got in pretty fast when I mentioned I was there because my doctor thinks I may have another PE blood clot!  Anyhoo, another test was ran.  Since we now know from the previous post that I cannot have a CT Scan done because the dye made my right kidney go into failure, they gave me an alternate test.  The technician told me to put this mask over my mouth/nose and hold it tight so that it creates a seal around my face.  She then sprays this stuff into the mask via the air hose.  Supposedly I was to hold this mask tight to my face for 5 minutes.  OMG! I could not breathe and was hyperventilating!!  I lasted for a good 3 mins and I told her that I couldn’t breathe!  She let me cheat a little and let some air in.  There wasn’t much air coming through that mask!! Finally the test was over and they told me I had a small clot.

 

I was admitted but this time it wasn’t critical that I stay in bed for some reason.  The doctor’s believe that since my PT/INR was below the therapeutic range for three weeks in a row, my body had a chance to form another clot.  This time, the doctors’ main goal was to get my PT/INR up to where it is suppose to be (between 2-3).  They had me on a pretty high dosage of Coumadin and gave me Lovenox shots in the stomach to get my PT/INR up.  I finally left after 4 long days in the hospital with a PT/INR of 1.7 ( since it was moving upward, I talked them into letting me go)!

Once I got out, my Primary doctor told me that she could no longer take care of my Coumadin dosage because it took more time than she had to regulate me so she referred me to a Hemalogist to help.  During my first visit with this doctor, he degraded me to the point where I almost walked out.  As I proceeded to tell him my history with Crohn’s Disease and PE blood clots, his head must of been in the clouds.  I don’t think he even heard a word I said to him!  He started asking me questions about my Crohn’s meds like if I’ve taken this or that to control it.  This medicine he mentioned is medicine I took back in 1998!  I’ve had Crohn’s Disease for 21 years and have tried everything currently out there.  If he would have listened to me in the first place, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself!  Then he asked why the doctors haven’t put me on something like Eliquist or Xalelto.   When I told him they don’t know how much of that I would absorb since I have Short Gut Syndrome, he just looked at me with this big grin like he didn’t believe that they would say that and I was lying to him!  That’s when I almost got up and walked out..He just looked at me and told me to take 7mg and Coumadin and get tested in 2 weeks!  I did speak up and told him that I was currently getting tested twice a week and I at least wanted it tested weekly.  He agreed.

Since then, my PT/INR has been everywhere and I hope it gives him hell!!

I do have to say that my Crohn’s Disease hasn’t really been bothering me that much lately.  I probably just jinxed myself!  Although I have had some pain on my right side, it could be much worse.  Thankfully only one system at a time is acting up and not both…yet!  I guess the only thing to do is to take one day at a time.  Oh yeah, I did stop taking my hormone pill because they said that may also be the cause of the clots so now I am in full-blown hot flashes again!  I guess I would rather have the hot-flashes instead of the clots!!  Until next time..

Chow for now!

Kelly