wickedqueen.net

I know, I know, I’ve been really terrible about posting lately. I had to grade 110 3-4 page papers on the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education.*

Also, I was having health problems. Again. With my blood. Which is abnormally sticky, thanks to Factor V Leiden.

A timeline:

• Around Wednesday, October 24: My left foot starts hurting. The pain is concentrated in the underside of the foot. It’s painful to walk around on it. This is somewhat unsettling, as it is exactly like the pain I experienced in my right foot for the two weeks before being diagnosed with a DVT in my right calf.
• Friday, October 26: I promise myself that if it still hurts on Monday, I will go to the doctor. Then I go to a party that ends with me walking like two miles to get home, in go-go boots, but I am… somewhat anesthetized.
• Sunday, October 28: I ask my friend Jessica if she thinks I’m going to die in my sleep. She suggests that I should go to urgent care in the morning, like I told her to do when she ran into a car on her bike and hurt her leg. Obviously I am not SO concerned that I might die in my sleep that I am willing to call 911, so I go to bed and lie awake for awhile because a) my foot hurts and b) I think I might die in my sleep.
• Monday, October 29: I get up in the morning and my foot hurts like WHOA. I call my GP’s office around 7am, but my GP is apparently off doing Important Doctor Things. After a couple of hours of no response, I call my friend Keely for a ride to Urgent Care. The doctor at Urgent Care looks at my leg, sees no reason to suspect a blood clot. She suggests I have plantar fasciitis, a strained ligament in the foot. Funny you should say that, I say, that’s what I thought I had in 2005 when it turned out that actually I had a DVT. She orders a D-Dimer blood test, which later comes back negative, but tells me to come back if I have any new symptoms. Okay, fine.
• Tuesday, October 30 - Thursday, November 1: I limp around and ice my foot a lot.
• Thursday, November 1: I notice a red, swollen area on the TOP of my foot, which is extremely painful to the touch. I call my GP’s office back and tell them I need an ultrasound right now.
• Friday, November 2: I go to the hospital for an ultrasound. I tell the technician that I have a swollen red spot on the top of my foot that hurts like hell when you press on it. For reasons that remain unclear, she does not actually ultrasound the top of foot. The closest she comes is the side of my ankle. No, I don’t know why I didn’t yell at her the way I did at that idiot doctor who unchecked my sexually active box. I was feeling poorly. The ultrasound, having not been done on the actual area of concern, comes back negative for clots.
• Later, Friday, November 2: I call my GP’s office and tell them that I may have gotten a negative ultrasound, but my foot hurts like hell and it’s been getting steadily worse, so I need an appointment. The receptionist tries to give me a week from the day. IT’S GETTING WORSE, I tell her. I get Tuesday. Hooray! TWO doctor’s appointments on my birthday!**
• That weekend: It causes me severe pain to PUT ON MY SOCKS.
• Tuesday, November 6: I go to the GP. On my bike, because you know, I don’t drive and the bus is a pain in the ass. The doctor looks at my foot. He pokes it. Yeah, he says, finally, that looks like a blood clot. But it’s just a little bitty baby blood clot. (Actually, he says “superficial thrombophlebitis,” and then defines it, which I appreciate; he doesn’t think I am an idiot.) He tells me to go home, elevate it, apply heat, and take anti-inflammatories to see if it goes away. I go home and immediately call my hematologist to see if this really seems like the best idea. He’s not in. I leave a message with the people at the reception desk–the ones who once thought my name was “Cannabelle” while LOOKING AT MY FILE.
• Wednesday, November 7: I spend the day on my couch with my foot elevated and a moist heat pack on it. I call my hematologist’s office and am told that he was very busy yesterday and is in a different clinic on Wednesdays. I leave another message, for which I have to explain everything again, because apparently people do not write things down.
• Thursday, November 8: Amazingly, my foot looks and feels a lot better. I go to work, because I have to teach and I may have a union but the unofficial line on this sort of thing is that I had better be missing a limb if I try to take a sick day. I call my hematologist’s office again, since they said yesterday that he would call me in the morning but mysteriously he has not. Again, it is like I have never spoken to anyone who works there before. Harpies.
• Later that day: It becomes apparent that my hematologist still has Fridays off–I wasn’t sure he still did, since it’s been two years since I saw him regularly–and I am becoming increasingly desperate about speaking to him before Monday. HAVE I MENTIONED I AM NOT CURRENTLY BEING GIVEN ANY MEDICATION? I ask. The harpy assures me that she will have a nurse catch him before close. Around 4:50, I, being distrusting, call back again and–after explaining yet again who I am and why I am calling–actually get my hematologist on the phone. I should note that I like my hematologist, and pretty much blame the reception staff for everything. Did I mention that one of them once thought my name was “Cannabelle”? Anyway, my hematologist says he thinks that since I’ve had an ultrasound on my leg and we know I don’t have any clots in there, and the superficial thrombophlebitis is clearing up on its own, he doesn’t think I need to be anticoagulated. This is a relief, since giving oneself daily injections of heparin is tiresome, and warfarin doesn’t actually work very well on me and, in doses high enough to have any demonstrable effect at all, also gives me hives.***
• Saturday, November 10: After spending another day at home with my foot up–I went in to work Thursday and Friday, but tried to take it easy–I think I am pretty much fine. Tomorrow maybe I can actually wash some of the disgusting dishes that piled up during the two weeks that I was benched, and maybe even go to the grocery store and/or gym. Stupid body.

Oh, yeah, and does anyone want to buy a discounted barely used plantar fasciitis night splint? It runs $80 with shipping on Amazon. Maybe I should sue.

—

*No, I do not want to talk about it.

***Something that my hematologist quickly diagnosed after everyone else in the office insisted that I was imagining things.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 12:31 am and is filed under medical drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.