|
Date with fate - post 28 - Blood Clots
This entry was posted on 1/13/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies.
Back in late 1990, the Meningitis episode in August had so weakened my immune system, I acquired Thrombosis (abnormal blood clotting) by October. It was my "first official" ordeal with abnormal clotting. Again this condition was also misdiagnosed (by the same local doctor that blinked on the Meningitis, by the way). As for the clotting, he had me on a regimen of antibiotics claiming I surely had an infection in my right leg that was causing the swelling and pain that so besieged me. Again I retreated to the Dallas Veterans' Hospital for a second opinion - but it was too late. The same VA doc that flagged the Meningitis again came to the rescue and diagnosed my clots, and again before I hit the cot. I had driven my landscape truck with empty trailer in tow to the hospital. They put me in intensive care immediately. I spent almost a month in the hospital. My father-in-law eventually drove my truck and trailer back to my house.
This blood condition would then plague me off and on for years. Although as I have noted in other postings, there was the suspicious earlier bouts with "alleged" septicemia in my legs which landed me in the hospital twice for lengthy stays while I was in the Army. Also, some Phlebitis episodes popped up from time to time in my life. And then, years later, my propensity to clot or bleed abnormally was finally diagnoses by University of Wisconsin Hospital doctors as a genetic anomaly - I was born with the damn condition. It was not my fault after all.
Doctors for years were always blaming me. They always asked, "What are you doing to cause this?" In those days it was thought that a young man in his twenties and early thirties just could not possibly get blood clots. Eventually though as the medical culture evolved in its diagnoses of such conditions they finally determined the genetic variable with me. Poetically, the medication to battle the clotting part of my dilemma (blood thinner) was developed at UW-Madison, Wisconsin just down the street from their hospital.
But back in that VA Hospital in Dallas, the pain was unbelievable. I was in a room with two other veterans. One was an American Indian. I still remember his quiet deep voice reminding me to stay alive throughout one of the first bad nights. Despite his own poor health he sat up with me all that night monitoring my digression into hell. In later bouts with the condition in my life, nothing except Meningitis or internal bleeding is more painful. Clots harden the legs, and lungs, and any thing else they get into and blood can't get through, no medications even put a dent in the pain. In regards to clots in the lungs, air can't get in or out - very painful.
Although the bedside manner of the docs back then was a bit to be desired, they saved my life. The third poor guy in my VA room had cancer. A doc came in one day and quickly said to him, "You're dying man, get your affairs in order." The doc abruptly left; the man sat stunned for two hours.
I remember looking out the window from an upper floor when I could finally get up and walk; a tumble weed rolled across the parking lot. A few days earlier a VA doc had told me I too would die and to say goodbye to my wife - something I would have to do a couple more times over the years until the condition was correctly diagnosed.
The pain of clotting is close to indescribable. Think of the worst cramp you ever had - then imagine it all over your body for 36 hours. Pain killer has no affect. When I realized I would make it and saw that tumble weed, I made my mind up then to return to Wisconsin. Life was too short - Texas would never be home. And in retrospect, my home hospital did finally zero in on the clotting condition - that condition that has killed me at least three times and then some. It is unclear why I survived not once but several times, what has so handily killed so many other unsuspecting people after just one clotting episode. Dan Blocker (Hoss) of television Bonanza fame died from blood clots back before the medical world had a good grip on the illness.
Thank any god you may bring with you then, that a few years ago, the docs at the University of Wisconsin Hospital finally decided it was genetic and I was born with it. That reality completely altered my treatment regimen and philosophy. The genetic marker would also explain a lot of problems I had in my youth. Go figure, I played four years of high school football (made all-conference defensive end and also played offensive guard), and of course, Uncle Sam let me in the Army (and made me stay the whole hitch too-boot). Not necessarily jobs you need to be doing if you have a propensity to bleed to death, or clot to death off and on - and, the condition has a tendency to adversely affect my heart beat leading to numerous times then that it has had to be stopped and then restarted...a woefully miserable experience.
I spent the next summer of 1991 working alone with no helpers and a trimmed down customer base. It took me a year and a half to get just part of my strength back. I remember spending many hours resting and listening to updates of Gulf War I on the radio. The next spring of 1992 Heide and I packed up and moved home to Wisconsin.
Who would have imagined back then that just 15 years later, I would go to Iraq as a journalist during our second war there... and go twice - with a correctly managed medication and treatment regimen (nowadays, considering I have survived, the doctors seem to pride themselves in "not denying" their patient any activities, including going to a war zone).
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Corporal Keith Alan Nurnberg, 26, McHenry, Illinois, and Genoa City, Wisconsin died Wednesday, September 5, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. Nurnberg was in the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, out of Fort Benning, Georgia. He died from wounds he received when insurgents attacked his unit during combat operations in Baghdad. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted Nurnberg had moved to Wisconsin before deploying to Iraq. His wife was expecting a child at the time of Keith's death. He was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Via information from the Northwest Herald newspaper of McHenry, Illinois, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went on to mention Nurnberg left for the second tour of duty in Iraq not long after marrying his wife, Tonya, in December of 2006. She is a third grade teacher in Round Lake, Illinois. He had moved to Genoa City from McHenry around the time of their wedding. Nurnberg was a 1999 graduate of McHenry West High School and joined the Army at age 22. He was laid to rest at Bloomfield Township Cemetery in Pell Lake, Wisconsin. The data base for military casualties iraq.pigstye.net via information from the Chicago Daily Herald notes Nurnberg was a Specialist E4 at the time of his death. He was promoted to Corporal posthumously. The Web site iraqnam.blogspot.com via information from the Northwest Herald noted Keith Nurnberg came from a family with a long history of military service. Nurnberg’s grandfathers both served in World War II and his father, Al, is a veteran of Vietnam. One of his great-grandfathers served in World War I. The family was quoted as saying Nurnberg mentioned things were different in Iraq from his first time around in the country. The iraqnam.blogspot.com also mentioned the couple's courtship had been quick, but they had known each other for 10 years before dating. Keith had run track in high school. At the time of his death Keith Nurnberg was survived by his parents, Barb and Al of McHenry; wife Tonya; and three sisters, Christi, of Colorado, Melissa, of Indiana, and Kimmi of McHenry. Keith Nurnberg was the 80th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
99,341 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,820 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,435 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1449 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
841 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,112 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,971 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
103 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
27 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
145 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
