Hi, first a shout out to Dragon for letting me know about this group. She was one of the customers in the yarn shop that I sell yarns on the day that one of the employees saw that I was in the hospital with PE.

So crappy year 2011, parents had cancer, I had pneumonia all dx'd within 8 weeks. I now have asthma after the pneumonia. There's a bunch of other health issues for me as well, that don't help.

So the week before the PE, I got sick with flu, Monday was seen by GP since the asthma thing doesn't make it better. He confirmed flu and added bronchitis and put me on Levaquin.....which has tendon side effects. Tuesday afternoon I was having significant calf pain, and saw GP again on Wednesday. He changed my antiBiotic and did a cursory DVT check, but I had only the pain and no swelling, no redness.

Friday, I was due to RTW on Monday, called boss who told me I did not sound better and I needed to know what was going on with my leg, because the not-walking thing is kind of a problem. So I called drs back, after hours at this point.....yes you should be assessed for DVT, they pulled me into Mior Injury clinic, because they are the bone/muscle guys. That appt went like this:

Doc: what's going on
Me: Calf pain, no reason for it, feels like charley horse from hell.
Doc: anytime someone presents with inexplicable calf pain, we check them for DVT and PE, you're going to the ER and here's your wheelchair.

So off to ER: ultrasound-no DVT, unremarkable Xray, Ddimer 2600+ and several PE on the CT scan.....they started me on Lovenox and waited for a hospital bed for me, which I finally got. I wound up being in the ER longer than the hospital.....but they sent me home. I was in constant contact with the Coumadin clinic for the next 2 weeks.....tracks and bruises on my arms due to the sticks, standard stuff.

2 weeks at home with this, going up the walls because I've already been on leave for 3 weeks between being sick and family.....

Saw my GP 5 days after discharge, (actually he called me the Monday after hospital and was like WTF, how do you have PE, you have no risk factors, which was reassuring in a way) he referred to Pulmonologist who was more concerned about the asthma, although he talked about the PE.....GP was the one that basically told me that my left lung was riddled with emboli....which is scary.

And recently found out the ER doc cancelled my albuterol because it does not help with PE, completely ignoring that it's critical for asthma. Talked to my GP yesterday and he re-prescribed and also told me there would be a lot of mental and physical fatigue in this recovery. I did not mention the dizziness, the feeling wobbly on my feet most of the time, the trembling is from the albuterol I am sure.

And, you know, there's nothing on the web about recovery, and what that looks like except that lwelch page. There's nothing about if you have both asthma and PE, except a study about comorbidity.

Meanwhile, I am trying to see if I am getting better, but the only measurements I have at the moment are my asthma ones and the little pocket pulse oximeter.

Without the milestones, how have people measured their progress on recovery? Has everyone been out of their jobs for the duration of the recovery? Are there people that have gotten better in short timeframes instead of the stories I see about it took my 3 years to get better, but I never really did? Because those stories are really scary and I really need some hope that things will get better, that I will be strong again in less than a year. cause frankly, I am 41, both parents had cancer last year and into this year. I take more medications that both of them combined. That's just wrong.