So I know what you are thinking...
Does she only write blog posts while she is on bed rest?
It does seem that way but what can I say...2020 has not been my year! I mean between the bushfires ravaging Australia, followed by the floods, Donald Trump still being in office and now the Coronavirus pandemic, has it really been anybody's year?
To side step to the Coronavirus topic, how about that?!?
I think what's most concerning to me is how multifaceted it is. On one hand you have people sheltering away from the world because of the simple life or death aspect, people want to live. Beyond that, they want their friends and families to live and they don't want to recklessly deliver a death sentence to a passing stranger. Then you have people losing their livelihoods, facing this pandemic unemployed, scared and concerned for life after the storm. Thread through an air of uncertainty and the strain of mentally trying to prepare for something you can't grasp.It's understandable mayhem unlike anything we have ever seen.
When I moved back to Australia back in August I moved back in with my family while I found my own place. I had planned to be out by November but after numerous hiccups and setbacks in my job hunt and health, I'm thankfully still under their roof which makes this uncertain pandemic much more easy to cope with. I've also managed to keep my job, which I'm hoping can withstand the economic rollercoaster we are riding down towards the ground at full speed....speaking of rollercoasters, back to my almost murder.
A few weeks ago I started wearing a FitBit.
I had been wanting to accurately keep track of my fitness, partially because I wanted to keep more on top of my health and partially because I received extra frequent flyer points for achieving different fitness goals. I became quickly obsessed, and often found myself running in circles at the end of the day when I saw my fitness goals weren't met.
On one particular Sunday a few weeks back I noticed I needed to get my butt moving for the day and went and had a swim and brief mini aerobics session in the pool. After doing 100 squats and lunging my way around the pool I went upstairs to get changed, noticeably winded once I hit my bedroom. Although soaking wet, I sat down on my bed absolutely exhausted. How embarrassing!
After dinner I ran downstairs to show my brothers how wheezy my breathing had become and how easily breathless I was...Did they think it was Corona! I needed to know. Probably not...I thought but still booked myself in for a Dr's appointment the next day.
I didn't work out this day....This was just from walking around the house....heart rate going wild
'So....I might be being really dramatic...but I just wanted to check if you thought this was weird.."
I said as a I sat down with my Dr. He took my heart rate, it was racing. I pointed to my FitBit to let him know it had been resting north of 120 bpm since yesterday often jumping as high as 145 from a simply stroll to the kitchen. He took me over for an EKG...he wasn't just concerned, he was confused. Sudden Onset Sinus Tachycardia? He rubbed my neck trying to prompt a reset of my heart rate, nothing. He put me on beta blockers for the night and asked me to come back tomorrow, certain these would kick me back to normal.
"Nope, nothing!"
I exclaimed as I fell back into my chair the next day, out of breath from the walk to his office from the waiting room.
Sure enough, he took my pulse and there it was racing along.
He asked about my other symptoms, I told him I didn't have any aside from the fact that I had pulled my left glute while being over ambitious with the lungs the other day. He called a cardiologist for advice, and booked me in for an echocardiogram for a few days time.
I didn't make it to that appointment.
The night before I was scheduled to go check up on my racing heart, I got up from the dinner table in a rush. Running (as best I could) upstairs to run myself a bath. My glute was continuing to throb no matter how much ice or deep heat I put on it and suddenly the pain was unbearable! I frantically scrubbed at the dirty bath trying to make it acceptable to dip into before giving up and just jumping straight in, dust and all. I was crying from the pain, staring at the ceiling with my heart, of course, racing! I happened to glance down to see how much longer until the water would fully submerge my leg. That's when I noticed my left leg was purple.
I frantically got out of the bath, yelling at my brother to grab my step-mum. She came running, asking if I was ok before I asked her if she felt my leg was a different colour. She assessed it, unsure, and said we should go to the emergency room.
After throwing on clothes and crawling down the stairs, My Dad and step-mum threw me in the car and we were off. My Mum called from Vermont as we left the driveway but I quickly told her I couldn't talk, unsure if I should worry her with the details when I wasn't sure what was happening myself.
As soon as I entered the emergency room, limping and breathless I was rushed back to a bed. The Dr (Dr. Dan who my family and I all agree was top notch!) walked in to ask me my symptoms.
"If I walk from this bed to that sink (no more than 5 steps away) I will be out of breath..."
"Huffing and puffing, it's really bad" My step-mum added.
He pulled a face at me.
"You are 26....you should be able to walk more than that?"
He paused and looked me over, taking vitals and keeping that confused look plastered across his face.
"That is a very serious symptom....we need to treat this very seriously..."
Within 15 minutes I was being wheeled in for a CT scan, I don't think I will ever get used to being pumped with dye and made to feel like I've peed my pants. This is the second time in just a few short months I was rolled through that donut of radiation, heres hoping its the last!
After a brief waiting period Dr. Dan approached again....
"Unfortunately, what I suspected was just confirmed....you have bilateral pulmonary embolisms, and they are big ones."
I didn't know what that meant, but I cried instantly this time not from the pain, but instead the fear of how serious that sounded!
"You need to be in hospital for the next little while"
He looked down and I nodded, not sure what was really going on with my body.
Thriving, lazy eye and all!
It turns out that what all this really meant was that my lungs were full of large blood clots that were restricting my ability to breath and causing my heart to work double time.
In the coming days in hospital, I would find out that these pulmonary embolisms were started by a large deep vein thrombosis in my left thigh.
So that glute strain I thought I had? Nope! Actually a huge clot that ran from my hip all the way to my knee! The person who did my leg ultrasound was almost giddy with how large the clot was. She even asked it she could take extra pictures because she had never seen one like this before.
As soon as they found that large DVT, I was ordered to stay off my leg for 5 whole days which means I got a lot of experience with bed pans, commodes and sponge baths (I was also strapped to a heart monitor which meant every time my heart jumped too high an alarm would sound and nurses would come running....now remember whenever I moved too much my heart would soar, which means I can now happily say I have had numerous nurses run in on me peeing, sexy!)
I call this....sponge bath next to my commode 18+, way too sexy!
Anyway, I digress! When the clots were discovered, I was immediately pumped with Heparin (blood thinner), and force to give vials upon vials of blood every 4 hours.
It turns out I'm a huge Diva (
Difficult
Intra
Venous
Access) which meant that it took multiple nurses, multiple attempts to get even the slightest amount of blood. I was bruised and defeated after a few days, and they quickly moved me to Clexane injections into the stomach and removed my drip of Heparin to stop the need for constant blood tests.
I ended up staying in the hospital for an entire week, lounging around, eating and watching the goings on in the ward. I made friends with the ladies around me once I left my own solo room after a few days, and got all but used to my routine vitals check throughout the night.
My friends stopped by to delivery flowers and Ferrero Rocher's (My ultimate sad time food) and my family visited daily to fill me in on the crazy happenings of Coronavirus bedlam on the outside. My Dad started a love affair with the chair next to my bed and the hand sanitizer I kept on my table at all times, and then after days of begging, they let me go home to further mend myself at home.
I limped out of the hospital, blood thinners and painkiller script in hand.
"Don't rush..."
My Dad fussed as he held the door and I stumbled toward it.
"Wow...one of your legs is bigger than the other..."
He pointed out as I looked at my throbbing purple leg....cute!
It's been a few days now and I'm happy to say I'm on the mend! I still hobble, I'm a little breathless sometimes and standing for long periods of time still sends pains radiating down my leg. But I'm mending!
The Dr warned me this would be a slow process.
I asked him what activities, stretches or pills I could take to speed things up and he laughed in my face.
The constant blood thinners I had been pumped with and continued to pump myself with at home would not be breaking down the clot. My body needed to do that on it's own and I needed to give it a few months to do so.
So that's what I've been doing, self isolating like a pro! Resting, de-clotting and recuperating to face whatever the world has in store next.
Now back to the title of this post...
Yep, it's true all of this was caused by a few days of the contraceptive pill
(NOT EVEN A FULL SHEET!)
I had only started taking it in February in an effort to control my ovarian cysts. Apparently the oral contraceptive specifically is the best course of action for this buuuuuut it turns out controlling the cysts also translated to filling my body with clots!
To add to this, my recent bloodwork results came back to inform me that I also have the Factor V Leiden gene...which means I'm susceptible to clotting, who knew!
The moral of this tale? Take care of yourself, know your body and pay attention to the risk factors involved with certain medications. The idea that sure, things can happen but they wouldn't necessarily happen to me, can almost kill you if you let it.
Take things seriously and always listen to your body and it's changes.
It could save your life!
