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.
I know this is what everyone here is going through, I just needed somewhere I could say it. My diagnosis was July 12. Not so long ago. Due to other complications w my health, my treatment is oxygen, blood thinner and wait for your body to heal. Whenever that happens. I have read about people having follow ups with their doctors every few weeks. My drs said, see you in 3 months unless it's real serious, then come back to the er. My primary dr is easy to get into, but has no insight to any decisions, like yes you can do this activity or no not yet.
I have been staying at my parents house because I get so short of breath. I am 35 and haven't lived at home in 18 yrs. I have been here for 2+ weeks now. I am blessed they are around and willing to help me, and I promised to stay here a month. But we are going to kill each other and their restrictions are killing me. Making me more depressed. They insist that their treating me like a 12 yr old is assisting in my recovery. I am not allowed to leave the house wo someone else with me. I know because they are worried about me, but seriously, I need some alone time.
I keep struggling with returning to work. I'm scared to go back, because i wasnt as on top of things before i ended up in the hospital. The dr thought i had pneumonia for 3 weeks when i couldn't breathe and i was going to work every day. But not at my best self. I know my coworkers could see that, but it's a job I've only had for 6 months. Super worried about returning after some one has had to do my job. Also, since my parents treat me like I can do nothing without causing immediate death to myself, I'm worried I will return to work and not be able to hack it. Again, only know these people for 6 months. They dont have years of dependability and hard work to remember, just these past 6 months I've been sick and not knowing it. I have to suck it up and go back, but I'm also afraid of what happens if I'm over tired from working and cant take care of myself. Then I will be back at my parents house. Love them, dont want to live with them.
Dr gave me no restrictions other than trust and listen to your body. My folks restrict my wake, sleep, social activities, tell me I cant go back to work yet wo damaging myself, that I cant drive wo someone with me. I know, I'm an adult who can walk out at any time. But i promised i would be here for 30 days.
I keep googling to find out when others go back to normal, and it seems a long time. If I dont get back to my normal life soon, I'm scared I never will recover and be who i was.
Thank you for giving me a space to vent and a lot of other people's stories to read, so I know I'm not alone in my struggle.
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Look at what my best friend did with my picture!
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We all have 24 hours in a day. How we spend these hours is important. Watching a little bit of a video about how sitting affects us made me aware of how much sitting and laying down I do. Gonna have to work on that.Your turn. Tell me another truth.
You are going to feel like hell for a while. You will have some shortness of breath but you go slow, you rest, repeat. If you aren’t trying to do somethings then you will lose a lot of conditioning which makes it that much harder to get back to normal.
I have a husband and he worked all day so when I was home, I was alone. I have a two story home with one bathroom on the upper level. I refused to stay in my bedroom, also upstairs, all day. So I spent time downstairs trying to do small chores, then rest. When I had to go to the bathroom, I had to climb stairs. It was a nightmare. But I did it, sometimes going up on my hands and butt. I had a DVT too which was incredibly painful, plus the lung stuff. I’m not saying kill yourself. Just find balance. It takes a couple of months sometimes to start feeling a little normal. If you wait to feel 100% back to normal to do things, go to work, etc, you will be waiting a while.
Also reach out to your doc or a counselor. Psychologically, this can really mess with your head and it might help you to talk with someone. It helped me quite a bit the first month or so after diagnosis.
Thanks for listening and responding.
Before I was diagnosed I went to the doc 3 times in 3 weeks for shortness of breath. Told bronchitis then pneumonia. I couldn't catch my breath sitting still at that point. I asked my mom to come help me feed my farm animals because I couldn't. She promptly moved in for three weeks. It was a toll on her, but she wouldnt leave me alone. Still wont. Less of a burden on her to take care of me at her house than my own. Which is why I agreed to be here for a month.
I do try to do as much for myself as I can. I'm a very independant person. But the second I get short of breath, even if I pause to catch it, my parents get all super concerned and make me stop. The only thing they dont stop is the stairs. So I find an excuse to change levels all the time to get some exercise.
I will see if I can find a counselor to talk to. Someone out of my situation.