Just in case you were sitting on the edge of your seats (I can hear that creaking,) or heard bits and pieces of the story (the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.)
I've always wanted to ride to the ER in an ambulance.
Let's overlook the glaring obvious (ambulance ride = bad sign) and just be honest, doesn't it look like fun? The flashing lights, the sirens, getting where you need to go in record time. And it makes a better start to any story than sitting in the urgent care waiting room bundled in sweatpants, slightly delirious, and shaking with fever like a Chihuahua.Which, indecently, is what I was doing two days after my previous post.
The doctor declared my incision site "beautiful" (the first of many to do so that day) and gawked at my medical chart.
"Your PT is 4.2!" (Normal is around 1.5)
Shake, shudder "Yes."
"You don't have any clotting factor."
"No." Pathetic whimper.
And then he scurried out of the door as fast as someone can who doesn't want his patient to worry. If I'd been more coherent, I might have worried. As it was, I was too busy trying to figure out how to recline the exam bed so I could go to sleep.
"So I called my colleagues at St. Jo's, and I want you to go straight to their ER."
"Zzzzzarhgd...whaa?"
He looked me up and down a few times. I probably didn't look like the kind of person who could be trusted to find their way out of an empty paper sack, let alone through the city to a hospital.
"Do you have someone to drive you?"
I wasn't much better by the time we reached the ER. Somehow I think the nurses are used to that.
"So how long has your leg been hurting?"
"Um, days? Since Thurs... no, Monday... um, what day is today?"
"What medications are you on?"
"Keflex? No, that's not right. It's an antibiotic. And it's a cycline. And it starts with a C. Oh wait, doxycycline."
"Are you sure?"
"Perhaps."
At one point I think there were three doctors and nurses in there, starting an IV, taking blood, and trying to drag a patient history out of a delirious patient. Eventually they shot me full of Dilaudid, which is very happy stuff, and wheeled me upstairs to the ultrasound technician. She was very friendly and very chatty, to a point.
"So here's your femoral vein. It looks great. I'm going to push on your knee and check your popliteal veins. Those are good. Hear that rushing sound? That's excellent. Now I'm going to move into your calf. Does it hurt if I press here? Oh, sorry, I guess that's painful. Could you get back on to the bed for me? Let's try that one more time."
Awkward silence.
"So how does it look?"
"Okay."
"You keep going over the same place."
"Just trying to get a clear picture."
The less any medical professional talks, the more you should be concerned.
I owe my doctor cookies for not diagnosing me as a blood clot. Instead I bled out into my leg right near the incision site. I guess that clotting factor's important. Who knew? I wound up spending the night getting IV antibiotics in the observation ward. Because I wasn't drunk or a psych patient they even generously let me have a room with a real door!
So, thanks all of you who expressed deep concern about my imminent demise, but I am back on both feet, and hematoma free. Which is particularly good, because I have some cookies to bake.
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