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The mother of all thrombosis - "Tough it out you just have the flu" - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 1/16/2012 2:00 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
It was the fall of 2001. The attacks had just recently happened at the World Trade Center. I had just transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater from technical school that summer to finish my bachelor's degree. Whitewater was some 65 miles from our home in New Glarus. Mom had died in March just before I started my journey in UW-Whitewater. The ordeal with Mom had left me tired and drained. I still pulled shifts at the Ambulance and I was still taking one last class at the tech school in Madison. That class was 45 miles from our home in New Glarus and about 45 miles from Whitewater. I had myself quite a triangle of long commuting going on - a lot of sitting. Plus that one last computer class at the tech school in Madison I was finishing up required a great deal of time at the computer screen - more sitting.
Long story short...., a perfect storm for an illness.
In my case, I knew what it was like to have blood clots. I would never forget the episode in Dallas in late 1990 when I almost kicked the bucket. At that time it had been mostly in my legs..., and it had initially been misdiagnosed as an infection in my right leg. Periodically, in that ten years between the 1990 Dallas episode and 2001, I would occasionally pop into the emergency room due to feeling some symptoms similar to that original ordeal. But it was always a false alarm.
This time all the progressive signs had befallen me. Since 1990 and my Dallas bought with blood clotting, I had severe atrial fibrillation (irregular heart beat) in 1996. In 2000 I landed in a wheel chair because my circulation was so bad in that right leg from the damage the 1990 episode had caused. In the summer of 2001 my irregular heart beat returned.
Now just a few months later in 2001, I had a really, and I mean really bad feeling. I had constant bronchitis, even what I suspected was pneumonia. My right leg ached like it had in 1990 and in 2000 - perhaps even worse. My doctor's clinic was just around the corner from where I had worked at the YMCA.
Since 1990 and that first round of blood clots, I had joined an ambulance service in 1995 and done a good bit of other medical training and jobs. Also, the medical world had rapidly changed in 10 years. Now a creature called a physician's assistant had entered the medical game. The day in question in the fall of 2001, I was to see one said physician's assistant who was helping out with patient load for my real doctor. These physician's assistants take a lot of doctor classes but are far from real doctors; but, they do however see and diagnose patients. The one I saw in late fall of 2001 had a god complex.
Before me sat a young woman more interested in her hair than my plight. She frowned at me when I mentioned my sorted history with health problems in my younger years that now we realize signaled my genetic blood condition; as well, she was unimpressed with my blood clots and irregular heart beats in my adulthood.
At the time, having six years of medical trainining and work experience myself, I got one of those little feelings in my pea head that I might as well be talking to a brick wall. Plus, I had years of life's experience dealing with trama in the military and daily toils at large. I had not just fallen off a turnip truck.
"You have a good case of the flu; I am going to send you home to tough it out. No Mister Keith, antibiotic or medications are not a good idea. You need to let this run its course," she said with the confidence of a sixth grader making up game rules on the playground.
The one time I did not go to the emergency room to have my fears checked out proved folly. For a week or so, like a fool, I did indeed, "tough it out." We had been through all this drill before. Heide begged me to get help, but, sometimes doctor visits panned out, yet sometimes it was a false alarm, and often I was just blown off.
Finally, one night, I gave Heide some phone numbers from work, college, and a friend or two at the ambulance. And then I said I was heading to the emergency room at my hospital. From our experiences, it was important Heide stayed home to hold down the fort. Heide later said she knew I was in trouble, just by looking at me.
I arrived at the same hospital I had taken many patients to on the ambulance over the years. I recognized several of the staff. The check-in triage nurse said, "You drove in here? You can't be that sick then. Have a seat in the waiting room."
I was striking out with the medical people yet again.
Once in the cubical however, the tune changed. "You ain't got no flu son, you're going to be here awhile," the old wily ER doc said. I was gradually becoming sicker by the minute. I had waited too long to seek real help.
"You need to get your wife in here," the intensive care doctor told me; he paused, stiffened his lip and continued, "And one other thing, son, You need to be aware you may not make it."
I thought of that assinine triage nurse.
I felt creepy after what that intensive care doc said; and, I could feel the blood rush to my head as I contemplated the worst.
When I awoke in intensive care the next morning, my regular clinic doctor at the time was siting at the end of my bed staring at me with a sick look. My wife sat to my side.
"You just about did not make it," Heide said quietly. My regular doctor from the clinic just looked to the side and shook her head. Clots had invaded every part of my body but my brain - lucky me. The pain was excruciating - blocked veins bulged with clots in my lungs and legs - that type of pain is extrodinary. Two weeks later I struggled home with a cain.
Never did see that physician's assistant again - don't know what became of her...,
..., perhaps she is selling used cars now.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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