Pulmonary Embolism Support Group
By far the most common form of pulmonary embolism is a thromboembolism, which occurs when a blood clot, generally a venous thrombus, becomes dislodged from its site of formation and embolizes to the arterial blood supply of one of the lungs. Symptoms may include difficulty breathing, pain during breathing, and more rarely circulatory instability and death.
Hi Gang, Sorry I wasn't here last evening but I went and stayed at Hotel ICU. My INR levels dropped below therapeutic and those magically appearing blood clots magically appeared. I am now once again the human pin cushion and have bruising all over my tummy and arms from needle sticks all night long. They kept me to make sure my heart wasn't affected too since the pains went away after a shot of lovenox and a spray of nitroglycerin under the tongue. This morning after discovering they didn't have an indoor pool I checked out to find more suitable accommodations. Anyway I am now scheduled for a colonoscopy to check for colon cancer just to make sure that's not where the clots are coming from. The doctor said she didn't wish colon cancer on anyone but at least that they could cut the cancer out and I wouldn't have clots anymore. What a weird world.
On a side note after my daughter picked me up from the hospital we went over to Wal-Mart to get my new coumadin prescription I'm now on 10 mg and while I was waiting this man keep saying I need help, I need help. No one was helping him so I walked over and asked him what was wrong. His wife had quit breathing so daughter and I threw her onto the floor and began CPR and rescue breathing on her. We told the pharmacist to call 911 and get us a mask for rescue breathing and their reply was whats that, we asked for an AED and they didn't know where it was and when we asked for scissors to cut the woman's blouse off they handed us a box cutter. Finally the ambulance crew arrived and that's when we informed Wal-Mart of all their inadequacies in their employees. Unfortunately when we were finally able to get an AED on the woman she was beyond saving. Please say a prayer for her. However I think she had been gone for awhile before we even started CPR on her as she was very cyanotic and blue.
On a side note after my daughter picked me up from the hospital we went over to Wal-Mart to get my new coumadin prescription I'm now on 10 mg and while I was waiting this man keep saying I need help, I need help. No one was helping him so I walked over and asked him what was wrong. His wife had quit breathing so daughter and I threw her onto the floor and began CPR and rescue breathing on her. We told the pharmacist to call 911 and get us a mask for rescue breathing and their reply was whats that, we asked for an AED and they didn't know where it was and when we asked for scissors to cut the woman's blouse off they handed us a box cutter. Finally the ambulance crew arrived and that's when we informed Wal-Mart of all their inadequacies in their employees. Unfortunately when we were finally able to get an AED on the woman she was beyond saving. Please say a prayer for her. However I think she had been gone for awhile before we even started CPR on her as she was very cyanotic and blue.
our Walmart expereice sounds terrible...another reason not to shop there!!
I pray that you're doing ok and maybe they made a mistake like my situation....anyway I'm glad you went in with your daughter and then the ambulance (that is the quickest way to be seen in Hotel ER! as I'm sure you know)
Regarding the cancer thing.... not to scare the entire group, but IF someone has a cance of any kind..... they are at a higher risk of having clots in the blood. I've read it in the literature and my hemotologist confirmed it. They say usually you know about the cancer first and then get a blood clot, but some people find out backwards- they might have cancer if there were no other pre- existing conditions (bed rest, surgery, trauman, long air flight, etc) As a few people mentioned.... you would probably have symptoms of cancer first.
I know that I'm having to do more follow-up as the last blood clot they thought they found turned out to be a swollen lymph node in my right lung. Not so good, but will be getting it checked out very soon per my hemotologist who also happens to be an oncologist (as you probably know.... most of them are trained in these two specialities) The bottom line is that you survived- thank God! and we should all do cancer type screening as are age appropriate and be aware of certain markers. It doesn't help that I'm anemic.... makes me think something is going on with my body. hmmm.....