Just a normal Saturday morning......wrong. I have been doing so well passed all the testing for the gastric bypass surgery with flying colours....there was only one concern the doctor had....blood clots. Now I myself have never had a blood clot but my father has had a few and they were major ones as they went through his heart and his lung. Due to this family history of blood clots I had to do extra testing, such as Doppler ultrasounds of my legs to ensure no blood clots, by the way I found the ultrasound of my legs to be extremely painful as the amount of pressure that is put on the main artery from your groin to your ankles is definitely felt. Now that I have said all that here's my morning in a nutshell. I woke up at 7:18 am and got out of bed. When my feet hit the ground I felt pain in my left leg....thinking maybe just from being in bed or stiff I headed for the laundry room to start a load of laundry and get my Saturday in gear. While getting dressed the pain persisted ...weird was my thought as it was an achy pressure kind of pain. So I instinctively rubbed my leg where it hurt....OH OH....at the top of my calf on my left leg just behind my knee is a large lump that would be the size between a golf ball and a tennis ball and it HURT to touch it! Reasoning with myself that I of course have never had a blood clot it must be something else. Finished getting dressed, headed out to do groceries and it got worse. Walking around the grocery store the pain and the pressure started to build. Now I was feeling like my leg was losing circulation. Nope I still reasoned with myself.....finished the groceries and then decided I better get this checked. Well, knowing my doctor is still away on holidays I had to call the after hours clinic and be triaged by a registered nurse. This time the nurse called back within 20 mins (rather impressive as I have waited up to 3 hours before). The conclusion was see the doctor right away. Off to the on call doctor's office I go. The doctor on call was quite friendly but sat back in her chair and did the "I am perplexed look" then said "I am perplexed". The lump is large but appears superfical....then the questions about blood clots. Now I am on my way to the local hospital to have another Doppler ultrasound as the doctor is concerned this is a blood clot. I have to say that it is quite painful and I am a little concerned myself as this lump appeared out of nowhere over night. This is not what I need right now! I am hoping and praying that this is not a blood clot for a few reasons. Blood clots or DVT is defined by Wikipedia as the following:
In medicine, deep vein thrombosis (also known as deep venous thrombosis and usually abbreviated as DVT) is the formation of a blood clot ("thrombus") in a deep vein. It is a form of thrombophlebitis (inflammation of a vein with clot formation).
Deep vein thrombosis commonly affects the leg veins (such as the femoral vein or the popliteal vein) or the deep veins of the pelvis. Occasionally the veins of the arm are affected (if spontaneous, this is known as Paget-Schrötter disease). A DVT can occur without symptoms, but in many cases the affected extremity will be painful, swollen, red, warm and the superficial veins may be engorged. The most serious complication of a DVT is that the clot could dislodge and travel to the lungs, which is called a pulmonary embolism (PE). DVT is a medical emergency. All limb swellings however trivial, should be regarded as a DVT until proven otherwise. Untreated lower extremity DVT has a 3% PE-related mortality rate. Deaths associated with upper extremity DVT are extremely rare.[1] A late complication of DVT is the post-thrombotic syndrome, which can manifest itself as edema, pain or discomfort and skin problems.
DVT or Blood clots at this stage before the surgery can cause delay or cancellation and they are dangerous due to the risk of a clot breaking away and travelling through your blood stream. I am hoping this this cellulitus or phelobitus. These two conditions can have similiar symptoms as DVT. Treatment of DVT is often done with medications but sometime surgery is required. Today is the day to pull out some of that strength and courage I have previously spoken about. Well, off to the hospital to conquer this obstacle...wish me luck. I will update as soon as I can.
Steph
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