Fridays in the emergency room

So we had a bit of an exciting time yesterday. Long medical discussion ahead, if you want to skip parts.

My left ankle has been sore and swollen for about a week, off and on. Last week was rehearsals for Coppelia, so we were dancing on a hard, hard stage rather than our nice sprung studio dance floor.

Yesterday morning at chemo, I showed it to the chemo nurses. They had the same reaction I did, that I'd somehow re-injured an old ankle break, and needed to just stay off it. So I iced it all through chemotherapy.

Then yesterday afternoon I noticed it was even MORE swollen and sore than it had been the day before. Ok. Either there's a break or a sprain in there, or something weirder is going on.

I called the oncologist, and told them about it, they said go in immediately for an ultrasound, we have to rule out a DVT (deep veinal tnrombosis), the fancy name for a blood clot. They had no spaces in ultrasound, so they said go into the ER.

At about 2:30, on a Friday afternoon.

Well, the front wasn't very crowded, but man, the back was. Initially they put me into the last little curtained room, but then a bit later asked me politely if I minded being in the hallway. All 11 rooms were filled up, and they had two more ambulances coming in.

So the doctor's reaction was the same as mine = reinjured the ankle. BUT they still wanted an x-ray and an untrasound, just to be safe. If there was a clot, it could kill me, either by going and mucking up a lung, or in my case by causing a brain bleed. Not good.

In the mean time, I got quite the tragicomedy in the waiting room. The five other visitors I could see were respectively - Hysterical Mommy girl, who was alternately yelling for her mom, her husband, and a cell phone, and trying to run past the security guard. Where she thought she would go in nothing but a hospital gown is a bit of a mystery, but the nurses got so tired of it at one point they threatened to tie her down. Then we had Obese Diabetes lady, which infections along the backs of her lags (She refuses to lie down, so she has pressure on bad veins all the time), her son chewing her out, and then turns out SHE is caring at home for her demented mother, and didn't want to spend the night in the hospital to take care of a new systemic infection. Yick.

In the hallway with me was Hearing Voices girl, who apparently had been admitted for creating a "disturbance". The disturbance turned out to be that she had taken a dump on the floor of a restaurant in town. How lovely. Schizophrenic, I guessed, and that seemed to be the doc's guess as well. (I know, none of this is any of my business, but in an ER they don't worry about HIPPA violations by eavesdroppers like me.) While I was liying around waiting for my turn in ultrasound, the last guy was admitted, also a hall patient like me, for, get this, a rattlesnake bite. The classic way, too. He'd killed a little one, then picked it up to make sure it was dead. And of course it wasn't - struck him on the finger. He ALSO didn't want to be admitted, because his wife's parents were having their 50th wedding celebration the next day, and he'd still managed to clean toilets and bathtubs for it BEFORE a friend convinced him to go to the ER. It really does make red streaks up your arm. But I got to see the baby rattlesnake, in it's own personal ziplock. And it really does make red streaks up your arm.



So, like most of my medical adventures, I didn't "present" normally. The infusion nurses said there'd usually be swelling or a red area further up my leg. There wasn't. They said it would be very painful. Apparently my definition of very painful is a bit wonky these days. And yes, there is a partial occlusion deftly hidden behind my left knee.

So oh goody, on top of the other treatment, I get to have a shot of blood thinner every day for a month, and try to keep that little sucker from growing any more. Who knew? But I'm glad I went ahead and went in, and didn't just blow it off as a sore ankle.

I'm in good spirits, just trying to remember to prop it up and help it circulate whenever I'm sitting down (ha ha ha.) Anyone who has mad packing skills, and can get over in the next couple of weeks would be HUGELY appreciated.

Love to all,
Chris