But you're here, and so am I, it seems. So gripe I shall. Just a little bit.
Normally I don't bruise badly, though I've gone through stages in my life where the slightest brush up against something would cause some interesting colors after awhile. I've always been a bit of a klutz and in my early adulthood had a tendency to run iron-poor. Eating disorders have their pitfalls. At the time, however, the terms anorexia and bulimia had not reached designer state - I just ate wrong and lost a ton of weight too fast... got my iron out of kilter and bruised bad as a result.
This is different though. This time I have even more interesting colors spreading merrily and painfully from each injection and blood draw point. I've half a notion to keep my hands in my pockets and arms well covered, in case someone sees me and calls some form of battered women's protective agency. I assure you, I'm in the best of hands, though, and my poor husband is already upset enough as it is.
The blood thinners must be working, for such a technicolor display to ensue. I've had two of the seven injections, and am not sure exactly how I am supposed to get the one today, since the Urgent Care place that gave me yesterday's kept the prescription form and didn't give us any information about what to do next. So I suppose I'll wing it and see if the ER has a record of the scrip, and find out if we're supposed to drive into town to do that there.
Meanwhile I've been doing way too much online research of this DVT stuff (deep venous thrombosis, for those of you just tuning in), and it's sounding like serious stuff. I just hope the Coumadin works while we can afford it - I found out yesterday that our insurance will cover 30 days of a prescription and beyond that, we're on our own.
This from the Canadian Family Physician site (http://www.cpfc.ca/cfp/2004/Jan/vol50-jan-cme-3.asp) :
"A relationship between long-distance air travel and DVT has been previously demonstrated. Passengers tightly squeezed into economy class seats might be at particular risk because of cramped conditions, in addition to decreased barometric pressure and low humidity. This case report suggests that flying might also result in stroke. Given the popularity of long-distance travel among aging baby boomers and the increasing age-related risks of stroke, the relationship between thromboembolic stroke and air travel requires further study."
Tightly squeezed is a misnomer. The recommendation is to 'get up and walk around' - 'drink plenty of fluids' - 'change positions frequently' - HA!
To get up and walk around during those flights would have meant getting the other two jam-packed folks next to me to move, coercing one into getting my cane from the overhead compartment, figuring a way to slide through minimal space without tripping, and then -finding- a place to move around. On one flight, there was less than 1/4" between my knees and the back of the seat in front of me. I'm not tall - 5'4" is not tall. How in the world do these 6-footers do it?
Change positions frequently? Breathing without displacing the person beside me was enough of a challenge.
Drink plenty of fluids? My fault - I should have brought a case of bottled water with me, although I have no clue how I would have reached for a bottle.
As far as 'further study' goes, they need only look around. Just in the past two days, I have heard from well over two dozen folks, all of whom know at least one person who is either suffering from DVT or knew someone who died from it in the past two years. Scary coincidences, and makes me wonder if that 60,000 figure isn't rather low.
So I'll take my shots, and I'll take my meds (at least until I can't afford to), and we'll see what happens. If nothing else, at least I have some spectacular discoloration to watch. I'll keep ya posted.
On a lighter note, since this is also exacerbating my insomnia, I was able to make major headway on the websites and stores, and actually added in a new design, some wallpaper downloads, a new forum, and some really cool automatic linking pages.
The text reads:
"There is but one and only one,
Whose love will fail you never.
One who lives from sun to sun,
With constant fond endeavor.
There is but one and only one
On earth there is no other.
In heaven a noble work was done
When God gave us a Mother."
Peace, folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment