Damn, Getting Old Sucks! (Ended up in the ER Last Night w/Blood Clots in my lungs)

[Jer]

That's right, plural. I had some pain deep in my chest inside of my lower ribs and thought maybe it was some trapped gas or some weird spleen inflammation or some such crap Sunday night. Went to bed, got up the next day and went work. The next morning at work the pain returned and was a little more intense so I took some Ibuprofen. It took the edge off so I continued going about my day until sometime in the afternoon when the pain started coming back when the Ibuprofen wore off so I took another dose and didn't think much of it. That was until about 9:30 when it wore off again and I had a hard time getting comfortable sitting on the couch watching TV with the wife. We got up to go to bed around 10:00ish and that's when the pain came on strong. Every time I breathed it hurt and prevented me from getting a breath. It was somewhat like that the last 24hrs or so but this time it didn't take much of a breath in before the pain caused my to stop. I was having a hard time getting air and was doubled over in pain because it hurt to sit, stand, lay down or do anything else. Leaning against the bed doubled over was my only play and even then it was taking concentration to slow down my breathing and get some air in my lungs. I was getting light headed and in a lot of pain and it was time to go to the ER.

Once we got to the ER (MCR) they got me in quickly and took it very serious. The Medical Center of the Rockies entire team was amazing. I can't say enough good things about every single person we came into contact with there. I hope you never need to go to an ER but if you do and it's MCR count your lucky stars because you'll be in good hands.

First thing they did was get some blood to test for heart attack. This came back flawless save for one category which is the one that indicates to a potential blood clot. Time for chest x-rays and CT scans. Slow night in the ER and all results came back quickly. The ER doc came back in and had a worried look as he sat down to explain to me what was bothering him. I had several blood clots lodged in my lunges and the condition was (and remains) life threatening. Blood thinners were immediately introduced and while he was apprehensive about letting me leave, he indicated that due to the fact that every other single category was flawless he was alright with me leaving with some stipulations. I have no doubt that my lack of health insurance and concern over cost helped to sway his judgement because I feel as though if I had health insurance I'd still be in that hospital. I'm glad I was healthy enough to have an option because I much rather be released if it's not eminently dangerous to do so.

The doctor was baffled on why I even was dealing with this. Of the risk factors for blood clots I checked none of the boxes. I see some specialists this week and one of the tasks will be to see if I have some sort of underlying issue that could trigger this again. It's just kind of odd and part of me is thankful for the pain I'm still feeling currently as it's what probably kept me alive. Had I not been in quite as much pain last night and just took some more ibuprofen and went to bed I may not be here typing this right now. I'm still far from out of the woods but hopeful that my treatment will prove effective and I'll be back to normal in no time. Whatever 'normal' means to me now. I have a feeling things are going to change moving forward.

So I'm now resting at home and took the day off of work. I was still planning to go in but I think I underestimated just how bad I am right now. I think I'll maybe even take the rest of the week off. On that subject, I started my new job about a month ago and my new health insurance doesn't kick in for a month or two. Wonderful. Now I get to look forward to seeing what this bill is going to run. Yikes!

I know most of you don't have fecesbook so I thought I'd post a heads up both as an informative post but also as a warning that can hopefully help someone else.

In lieu of sending get well soon cards please send firearms. They help to sooth my soul. [Flower]

[Irving]

I was just wondering where you've been. Sorry to hear that it was the ER. How do you get clear of this issue so it's not always hanging over your head?

[rondog]

Damn, son! Take care o' yerself ya hear?

[Jer]

I was just wondering where you've been. Sorry to hear that it was the ER. How do you get clear of this issue so it's not always hanging over your head?

I started a new job and have been pretty busy lately trying to balance out my first job in years with working out and then married life with two elderly dogs.

As to how I get clear of this issue... I dunno. One of my buddies has a brother who had a clot in his lung was on blood thinners for 6mos and got a bill of good health. He's been off of the thinners for years and hasn't had an issue since. Another person I know had a series of blood clot issues and has to be on blood thinners for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile my other friend has lost two friends fairly recently to blood clots in their lungs. Just because I've been diagnosed and am in treatment (mostly just blood thinners & such) it doesn't mean I'm out of the woods yet. I can still go at any moment which is a nice break to think about between the pain. lol I'm not really sure how this is going to look moving forward but I know that I'm going to give it my all in an attempt to return to normalcy as soon as possible. This isn't fun.

[cmailliard]

If you ended up in to OR you would probably run into my wife. Hope it all works out, pay attention to the signs and symptoms and if they even hint at a return get back in. For sure take some time off, let your body recover.

You said it was deep pain, was it diffuse or pinpoint (draw a circle around it or point right at it)? Sounds like it hurt when you took a breath, how about when you or the doc pushed on your chest? These very simple things can tell you if you are having cardiac chest pain or pleuritic chest pain. When it comes to chest pain it can be several things but the biggies are cardiac or respiratory. Your signs and symptoms point to respiratory, which obviously is the case. Either way if the pain is bad enough, get into the hospital. It's amazing what a good assessment can tell you, even without fancy machines. Unfortunately the art of the assessment has gone downhill in recent years.

Get some rest and try not to wait so long next time.

[hghclsswhitetrsh]

get well soon.

[cmailliard]

Public Service Announcement

Most of the causes of blood clots are from Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib). Your Atriums are not contracting normally but they are fibrillating (quivering), same thing your ventricles do in V-Fib (you are alive when this is happening). With A-Fib since the blood is not being completely ejected into the ventricles some stays in the atrium, it eventually clots and then gets pushed though the system (lungs, heart, brain are the bad sports for it stop). You can feel A-Fib in your pulse, if your pulse is irregularly irregular, meaning there is absolutely no patten to your pulse, it is most likely A-Fib.

VIDEO on A-FIB (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPqs4xKPG3A) a little technical but easy to follow.

[Sawin]

Dang dude, I am sorry to hear this news! Although I am certainly glad to hear it from you and not "about" you in the past-tense kind of way! What did the Doc say about alcohol? I've always heard it thins your blood.

I hope you recover quickly and never have a recurrence.

[Bailey Guns]

Best wishes for a full recovery, Jer.

[vossman]

Craziness Jer. Glad you got it diagnosed quick.

[brutal]

Glad you're OK.

You need to be checked for Factor V Leiden - it's basically the opposite of hemophilia and is hereditary.

I found out I had it after a similar trip to the ER with a double PE. Mostly the same symptoms. I was barely ambulatory, and ashen when we walked in. Certainly had a hard time staying upright. I had a bout of pleurisy many years ago and the pain was similar at first so I assumed that's what it was. It eventually got so bad and hard to breathe that I had my wife take me to the ER 2.5 miles away and also her place of employment. I was treated in the ER with oxygen, morphine, heparin, and 2 days in the cardiac unit. Got a clean bill of health and released.

A few years prior, I had a blood clot in my calf following knee surgery and post surgical travel. They treated that and had me on thinners for a few months, then off. About six months later, I had the ER event. It was another clot. Lucky I didn't stroke or die I guess. I'm now on lifetime blood thinners.

[Gman]

The wife had multiple PEs in February. In hindsight it appears to have been from her final chemo session and a blocked implanted port. Don't mess around with blood clots. Fortunately I had purchased a pulse oximeter earlier on Amazon that indicated her high heart rate and inability to keep a normal oxygen level even while on supplemental O2. Off to the ER she went.

Unfortunately, once you've had a clotting issue there is a continued risk of future clotting. She's had a history of clots, so she'll likely be on Coumadin for the rest of her life. Fortunately, she tolerates it well.

If you end up on a therapy of Coumadin/Warfarin, insist on the branded Coumadin. My wife's doc figured out that the dosing of the generic would make tuning of the INR level a PITA. The generics vary by manufacturer and lot. Getting the dosing nailed down for the wife was a snap with Coumadin.

Hang in there and we're pulling for ya'!

[Grant H.]

Wow, sorry to hear this.

Praying for a full recovery.

And yes, getting old sucks.

[StagLefty]

Hopes for a quick recovery !

[sniper7]

Hoping for a quick recovery

[laportecharlie]

Jer, you don't even know what old is! Hope you get over this quickly.
Charlie

[Great-Kazoo]

Jer, you don't even know what old is! Hope you get over this quickly.
Charlie

[LOL]

Take care , Kid.

[buffalobo]

Please heal quickly and completely. [emoji106]






Would be a drag to have to find another to razz and joust with.[emoji33]

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[cableguy11]

Get better! And yes getting old sucks! You need anything just shoot me a PM, after all I am just down the road.

-Art

[gnihcraes]

Well wishes!

Do what the doctors tell you. Same thing happened to my mother last year. No reason for the clots, they just happened! It takes a while, but you'll be better.

Job; hopefully they understand. I had a stroke 4 months into a new job. Everyone was great about it. Some donated their PTO/vacation time since I didn't have anything built up. Had to take some unpaid leave for a week or two. It all worked out and I'm still employed there.

[fitz19d]

Dude can I have your truck?



For serious, I'm assuming not eligible cobra coverage since you said you didnt work in a while? There last I knew was some kind of one off and good for only one year Colorado needs based health coverage thing. Years ago before all the obama care nonsense when I had a knuckle fight bite that almost had me lose my hand, they signed me up for it there in the patient rep office. (Also at mcr)

[jgang]

Dang Jer! I got that contact info to you as soon as I could today. When you finally get around to talking to Dave, ask him about other benefits you might have through the VA. If I can be of any help at all, just ask...I have some other contacts that I can put you in touch with.

[Hummer]

Take good care of yourself, Jer. Don't hesitate to go to urgent care next time your body tells you something's wrong. You've got lots of ammo left.

[theGinsue]

Damn it Jer, knock this shit off...I like having you around and going around getting clots in your lungs jeopardizes that, so stop it.

In all seriousness, take time to recuperate fully before pushing it. The stress and on your body from an event like this is harder than you realize. Heal!

Let me know if there is anythng I can do for you brother.

[pickenup]

Hope you get better REAL soon.

[Graves]

Take it easy and get yourself better, Jer.

[WETWRKS]

Get better...this sick garbage is no fun.

[BigBear]

Wow man... hope you're feeling better now...

[kwando]

Hope you make a speedy recovery. I think that most of us start to ignore the signs our bodies are giving us. If you don't feel good, go and tell your doctor. If you doctor doesn't find anything and you still feel like shit, go get a second opinion.

[UncleDave]

That sucks Jer. Get yourself signed up for medicaid in your county. My M-I-L broke her leg last year with no insurance. And they covered almost all of it. That is what it is there for. Get the treatment you need and follow the doctor's orders to the letter. This is no joke as I can tell you know. Get well man.

[Joe_K]

Hope your recovery process is smooth. Take it easy man, we like to push ourselves too hard sometimes, especially when healing up.

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

[fportmen45]

Hope you feel better soon, man.

With regard to the hospital bill, negotiate it. If you need some ideas, please feel free to send me a PM.

[Grant H.]

With regard to the hospital bill, negotiate it.

This.

I didn't have insurance when I had my appendix taken out a couple years ago, and just by calling and talking to each of the people that sent me a bill (every person involved sends a separate bill) they all knocked 25% or more off for a cash payment.

Also, ask for itemized bills. My initial hospital bill magically dropped over $2k when I asked for that.

[Jer]

Hey everyone, sorry for the delayed response. I forgot that I had this open in a tab on a PC that I don't use frequently so I forgot to update.

Most of you have seen me post occasionally in other threads on this forum so it will come to little surprise to most of you that I'm still alive and annoying. lol

The first several days of this was a whirlwind but I quickly got back to my life about as normal as I could have expected. I took the last four days of that week off and was back in work full time starting the following Monday or one week from the ER visit. Not too shabby.

Up next was working out. None of the specialists/doctors could tell me to not workout but instead told me that being active and not sedentary was good for me. They said to listen to my body and my primary care physician even said that my cardio would likely be the limiting factor for months and wasn't worried about me even having the breath to push my body. Wrong! lol

[Warning: annoying Crossfit talk ahead] I went back to my first Crossfit workout the Friday night of the week I went back to work or about 1.5 weeks after the ER visit. The plan was to take it easy and see how my body responded. The workout was a three person team workout and two of the coaches selected me to be their teammate. I attempted to warn them that if they were trying to go after the top time set by a three-coach team in the previous class they might want to get another teammate as I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't be flat on my back after 1min of working out. That's okay they said, we'll go whatever pace you want. It was three stations of rowing for calories, bench press and then this crazy lunging & overhead press movement that sucked. I started out at a light pace and slowly worked my way up little by little. 10min in I actually felt great and started pushing things a little bit more. It was a 21min cap workout and by the 17th minute I was literally telling the coach and co-owner to hurry the hell up because he was holding me back. Haha! I was pleading with them to hurry up so we could catch the record set that day and I couldn't believe when I heard myself telling two of the fittest guys at our Crossfit to hurry up because they were slowing us down. We hit the 21st minute and when everyone else collapsed to the floor spent I kept going. After a week and a half of not knowing if I was going to drop dead at any moment or any answers as to why it happened or what I could do to prevent future events and just general confusion and lack of answers to my health I was finally back to being me. I put in another 2min or so and I couldn't have felt better. I felt more alive in that 25min or so than the previous ten days combined. Needless to say I went back to Crossfit full time immediately and I've been going 6 days a week since.
[/Crossfit talk]

My pain levels subsided a couple of weeks after the ER trip and now it's only occasional discomfort. I'm on blood thinners for life (most likely) and I came to terms pretty quickly with that revelation. I'm just glad it's easily treatable and wasn't serious. Well, that is to say that it was incredibly serious from what I've been told and what I've read but at least it wasn't emergency surgery open heart surgery or some crazy life-changing treatment after the event or any number of things that could have been FAR worse than taking a pill every day and trying not to cut myself.

Thanks to everyone who replied and was concerned about my well-being. Thanks to those who didn't post here but reached out to me using other methods of contact. This is a great community and one I consider family... no matter how dysfunctional most of us are at times. [Beer]

[buffalobo]

Glad all is well. [emoji106]

I even read the CF stuff. Good on you.

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[Irving]

Yup, glad your able to have your life be normal still.

[brutal]

taking a pill every day and trying not to cut myself.



Glad you're doing well.

Even the cutting or scrapping yourself a little on occasion is certainly manageable, just takes more/longer pressure. A shaving nick can fuck up your timetable though.

[Gman]

Glad to hear you've bounced back so quickly!

[TFOGGER]

Glad to hear you're back at it, crossfit and all! [ROFL1]

[SSChameleon]

So I had to search for this thread, I remembered reading it and I had almost the same experience. About two weeks ago I had a knee scope. All went well and I was feeling good, starting PT. I woke up Friday and felt like I had slept wrong on my back. Throughout the day I had back spasms that got worse each time they hit. By 10:00 that night I was laying in bed and couldn't get the pain to stop. It had spread from my back to my back and abs.

My wife called sitter for the kids and took me to the ER. Between my cycling and three kids I have been in too many ERs. Parkview has the best one I've been in so far. Ultrasound showed a clot in my leg behind the knee, CT scan showed PE in bottom of both lungs. Looks like I'll be on thinners for 6-12 months. The worst part (other than the spasms) were the vampires coming in all night to draw blood, and the shot in my stomach. Every time I would start to fall asleeep some guy wearing nitrile gloves would show up and poke a new hole in me.

Jer- your story is encouraging. I am a very active guy and my biggest fear from the knee scope to the blood clots is the impact to being out and about. Moral of the story, when abdominal and back pain hit a 10 on the scale and the meds are having little to no impact, go get it checked out.

[theGinsue]

Severe pain sucks to high hell, but I'm glad to hear you got checked out and on treatment before any damage was done.

Go slow for a bit to let things work their course, then ne extra careful for the duration of the blood thinners.

[Jer]

So I had to search for this thread, I remembered reading it and I had almost the same experience. About two weeks ago I had a knee scope. All went well and I was feeling good, starting PT. I woke up Friday and felt like I had slept wrong on my back. Throughout the day I had back spasms that got worse each time they hit. By 10:00 that night I was laying in bed and couldn't get the pain to stop. It had spread from my back to my back and abs.

My wife called sitter for the kids and took me to the ER. Between my cycling and three kids I have been in too many ERs. Parkview has the best one I've been in so far. Ultrasound showed a clot in my leg behind the knee, CT scan showed PE in bottom of both lungs. Looks like I'll be on thinners for 6-12 months. The worst part (other than the spasms) were the vampires coming in all night to draw blood, and the shot in my stomach. Every time I would start to fall asleeep some guy wearing nitrile gloves would show up and poke a new hole in me.

Jer- your story is encouraging. I am a very active guy and my biggest fear from the knee scope to the blood clots is the impact to being out and about. Moral of the story, when abdominal and back pain hit a 10 on the scale and the meds are having little to no impact, go get it checked out.

Wow, that's crazy to read. I saw the thread title pop up in the subject line of the email notification and I got a bad feeling. Glad that it appears to have worked out alright for you as this PE crap doesn't always have a happy ending. Reading your words took me right back to that time a few months ago that feels like a life time ago now. I didn't miss too much of a beat in the grand scheme of things and really don't even notice it now other than the occasional blood test to make sure my INR #'s are still within range. I got back to work after only a few days and working out nearly 100% in less than 2 weeks. I try my best to forget about it and move on with whatever normalcy I can muster given the circumstances. Every now and then someone wants to talk about it or it comes up in conversation and I kind of think 'Wow, I'm very fortunate because not everyone is still around to think about how good they have it.' I hope you continue to mend and I look forward to updates about your progress and how this has affected you for the positive. I know I don't take a single day for granted.

[brutal]

So I had to search for this thread, I remembered reading it and I had almost the same experience. About two weeks ago I had a knee scope. All went well and I was feeling good, starting PT. I woke up Friday and felt like I had slept wrong on my back. Throughout the day I had back spasms that got worse each time they hit. By 10:00 that night I was laying in bed and couldn't get the pain to stop. It had spread from my back to my back and abs.

My wife called sitter for the kids and took me to the ER. Between my cycling and three kids I have been in too many ERs. Parkview has the best one I've been in so far. Ultrasound showed a clot in my leg behind the knee, CT scan showed PE in bottom of both lungs. Looks like I'll be on thinners for 6-12 months. The worst part (other than the spasms) were the vampires coming in all night to draw blood, and the shot in my stomach. Every time I would start to fall asleeep some guy wearing nitrile gloves would show up and poke a new hole in me.

Jer- your story is encouraging. I am a very active guy and my biggest fear from the knee scope to the blood clots is the impact to being out and about. Moral of the story, when abdominal and back pain hit a 10 on the scale and the meds are having little to no impact, go get it checked out.

Very surprised they did not have you on IV dosing Heparin.