For an In-depth Description
- National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
See Picture #1.
What They Are And Who Gets Them.
I never expected to ever have a Blood Clot, let alone one that would or could kill me in a few hours time. I had heard that seniors get the blood clots, but I was only 37 years old. I didn’t know anything about them only that they were deadly if untreated. Now they tell you that it is only from sitting in airplanes that are the cause of them and lack of circulation. I can tell you that is not the only case. I got my from a fall. It didn’t show up until 3 months later. I had no idea there was a time bomb ready to go at any moment in my veins from that bad fall.
A Deep Vein Thrombosis (Blood Clot) is deadly if left untreated. For some reason the blood thickens, mostly in the lower part of the body and will form a clot in a vein deep in your body. Mine was just under the knee cap on my left leg. If that clot dislodges it can go to the brain or the heart and it will cause death.
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What It Looks Like and What It Feels Like
See Picture #2.for what it looks like after a few hours. These are not my legs. I had my DVT in my left leg. It doesn’t take long for it to get this size. It is very painful because the oxygen is not getting to the extremity–your foot. It feels like someone is twisting your foot around to the back of your leg and it doesn’t let up. You also experience muscle cramps in this area. It is very painful. Your skin feels like it is going to split open.
My Story
I had the one DVT. Not knowing that was what it was because I was on Prednisone for some other ailment, they thought that it was the medication. They tried to slowly get me off it in a hurry. I think my doctor had his suspicions when I called him and told him that I had to hold on to a broom handle and pull myself across the floor to get to the phone. My leg was that heavy and huge. Fifteen minutes after calling me, I did as he told me to do–wait by the phone. Well he called back and told me that I had to get the the ER ASAP! I couldn’t wait for anything.
Once I got to the ER, I was immediately taken in and put in an ER room to wait for a hospital room to open up. They measured my leg and it was 37 cm. which was much bigger then my right leg. They put an IV in me right away and took me to the Ultra Sound Room. I was rolled back out the the same room I came out of. Both my daughters were around me as we waited on the Doctor to come and see me. It was before my parents had arrived that he told me that I had a Blood Clot and would have to stay in the hospital for 9 days. They found that I also had phlebitis in my right leg as well as the DVT in my left leg. I said, “that was an old people’s disease”. He said, “that it really wasn’t”, and a boy died there a short time ago with a heart attack and he was only in his 20’s.
He explained to me that if I moved that the blood clot could break off or dislodge and it could go to my brain or my heart and I would die. It is certainly nothing to be nonchalant about. I finally got a room upstairs and they rolled me up and put me in the bed. I had my feet elevated up above my head. I was not to move at all. Slowly the Heparin Lock went into my veins. Heparin is a drug that stabilizes a blood clot and shrinks it. I have had three different diagnoses with the healing of those. One is that the clot just dries up and goes away. The other one is that it is just pushed up against the vein wall and stays there–but it is much smaller. The last one is that it dissolves completely. I can tell you that it does neither! My leg will still swell in the heat. It will still swell if I sit or stand too long. It took me years before I could stand for more than 2 hours without my leg swelling. It is very scary!
When I told them that I couldn’t stay still for longer than a couple of hours they went ahead and gave me Demoral for the pain and to get me to relax and sleep so that I wouldn’t move. That was great and I slept for 3 days! Then they mixed the Demoral with Valium when I awoke. I had never had Valium before and I was very scared. When the nurse came back in he said that I was holding onto the handrails of the bed like I was holding on to life! He asked me if I had ever taken Valium before and I said no. I told him that I felt like I was floating about 3 inches above the bed and if I moved I would fall off the bed. They took me off of the Valium right away!
With all this happening and the prognosis and what they had told me I was confident that this would just be a bump in the road. This was not the case.
Your body is a wonderful hard working thing. It can guard against any illness you may have and all kinds of things. It is amazing to say the least! If you don’t use parts they will atrophy–which means they stop working. It’s like the saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it”. I found that out the hard way. First let me tell you about the first time I was to go to the bathroom on my own without a catheter in. I thought everything was fine and I felt fine. Everything would go back to normal. My leg was not swollen anymore and I was able to move around in the bed.
When the nurse came in she had me scooch to the side of the bed. I was fine then. OH the pain in my leg by the time I got it to the floor! When I got it to the floor was when I exclaimed in a loud voice, “Oh My God”. She immediately called for a wheel chair. It was as if nothing had gotten better. It was just as painful as when I first came into the ER 8 days ago! I did manage to get to use the bathroom. That was good. Getting home was rough. I was on pain meds and had orders to get a certain kind of stocking and get measured for it. I was also to get crutches. So my daughter took me home and went out and got all the things that I needed. I wore those support stocking all the time except after taking a shower. I didn’t dare take a bath for fear of not being able to get back out of the tub. I was also to go back every two weeks and get a blood test so they could check on how thin my blood was. They had to have it the right consistency. If it got too thin I could bleed out. Meaning I could bleed to death and that wasn’t good.
Now back to the leg and atrophy. Yes, my leg atrophied! I never thought for once that laying in bed for 9 days would make it so that I had to learn how to walk again. I mean I knew how to take one step in front of the other, but I had to get my leg to obey my command from my brain. It took 3 months——————-3 months!! I wasn’t prepared for that.
Six months later I was allowed to go back to work. So I did. A few weeks later————boom———I had another blood clot! Same thing and same procedure and same hospital stay and crutches all over again. I did everything they told me to do! There I was out of work for another 3 months.
I was finally released from the meds and was told that I could go anywhere that i wanted and so my daughter’s and I finally went on a vacation. It was going to be a 16 hour trip in the car, but as long as I wore the stockings and exercised my legs in the car, I was told that I would be fine. We had fun there for a few days and then my leg started hurting again and I saw the red lines go up my leg and I was taken to the ER there. I had another DVT.
So in my experience those blood clots do NOT go away! I have taken the responsibility on myself to take care of that and to watch for the signs and symptoms. I have had a few false diagnoses.
Eventually I took myself off of the Coumadin. This isn’t for everyone. I put my faith in God that he would take care of that andthat I would never have to be on that drug again. It’s rat poison.
I did this for a reason. When I got back from Vacation and went back to work the doctor had my blood too thin and I was bleeding internally. How does that feel——very painful. I had a stomach ache that made me double over several times in an hour. It was so bad and I lost so much blood that I was put in the hospital on my birthday to get not one unit of blood …but 2 units.
I watch myself now. I take care of what I do and when my leg swells from sitting at this computer for too long I get up and walk around. If I had too much standing, I sit down when I need to. It is hard for me to get a job that is in places like Fast Foods, Waitress or Retail Stores. I have to be in control and not some other person. It is my body and I have to take care of it. See picture #3 to see what the leggings they give you to wear for circulation problems in the legs.
Many years after this all has happened my father found out that he had a blood disorder with his legs. It wasn’t a clot, but something else. That is when my daughter and I surmised that this might be hereditary and that is why I got the clots. When I got them years ago, no one knew how or why I got them. I did think of the fall that I had while working at a McDonald’s three months before this clot appeared and I do think that was the major contributor of the first DVT, but the other two–must have been hereditary.
So it is not always an Airplane ride or a long car ride or sitting too long in places. It also could be hereditary and falls and such menial things one doesn’t even think about.
I am left with a souvenir of the several DVT’s that I have had. This will never go away. It is a stain on my ankle. It has been there since the first DVT that I had. See picture #4 for the reminder I will always have for the rest of my life
