DVT/PE Experience
The middle of September 2015 I started feeling a heaviness on my chest and like I was congested. It got progressively worse each day. It started to feel like I had a rock in the middle of my chest and when I got up from my desk to walk around I felt like my heart was fluttering. That Thursday I stayed home to rest thinking I might be getting bronchitis. The next day I went to work and felt really bad. I would break out into a sweat just walking from one room to the next and my breathing was labored. When I was leaving work that day I almost passed out in the parking lot my heart was racing and I couldn't catch my breath I had to just sit down right there. I thought I had developed pneumonia. I was able to make it to my car and drive myself to an urgent care facility. They told me I had bronchitis and prescribed an antibiotic and inhaler. That whole weekend I felt ill and just walking a few feet my heart would race, I'd pour sweat, and felt like I couldn't breathe. I kept thinking the meds would eventually kick in. On Sunday my husband and I both agreed I had to get in to my regular doc Monday or go to ER. She only saw me for a few minutes and immediately recognized my symptoms to be consistent with a pulmonary embolism. I forgot to mention by this time my left leg was hurting and felt like I was wearing an ankle weight. I went to the ER where they found a DVT in the popliteal vein of my left leg, large saddle bilateral pulmonary emboli in both lungs, and a severely dilated right side heart. The cardiologist offered to do tPA but another doctor told me about the chance of bleeding in the brain and I was already dealing with DVT/PE and I couldn't fathom adding a brain bleed to that. I now really REALLY regret not having it administered. I was started on Lovenox shots then a Heparin drip. I had an IVC filter placed so the residual clot in my left leg would not throw anymore clots to my heart/lungs. I was in ICU for four days.
After my release I dealt with the typical anxiety that all of the PE survivors have mentioned. I was scared to go to sleep up until recently but now I just say flip it I'm getting really tired of not sleeping. I thought I was going to be one of those lucky people who's clot dissolved quickly and I would go right back to normal life. In fact, I did go back to normal life. Four days after getting out of ICU I went back to work full-time and back to school at night pursuing my second degree. I also started exercising right away too. I smugly thought thank God for being young so I could bounce back right away. I soon learned that was a HUGE mistake!! I hit a wall and felt exhausted. Then I started noticing that when I would do activities around the house my heart would race. This immediately terrified me and sent me into a depression. I felt (still feel) like my heart was going to give out at any moment due to the right side heart strain.
Then exactly a month from the date of my release from the hospital I was feeling really well and it was a busy day at work and I was walking around no problem feeling fine. The last hour of work I started having sharp stabbing pains on the left side of my chest. This really freaked me out. I thought maybe I was just having anxiety from the stressful day or maybe my bra was too tight. I went home and was feeling fine and about to cook dinner and turned and felt the stabbing pain again. I freaked out and went and sat my butt down on the couch. I debated going to the ER but it was getting late so I decided to see how I felt in the morning. That night I had the same pains intermittently and the next morning as well. I went in to work as I was finishing up a crucial project but asked my boss if I could leave early. I left and went straight to the ER. They did an EKG, d dimer, and CT scan. They admitted me for observation so they could check my heart enzymes. It was a whole mess with my CT scan which I won't even go into but ultimately after speaking to two doctors and two cardiologists they found there were no new clots and that I had less clot compared to a month ago. How much less they didn't say and me continuing to be ignorant I didn't even ask. I guess I was disappointed to hear they had not completely dissolved. They said the strain on the right side of my heart had improved and again I didn't ask for a more in depth answer. I am usually the type that asks a ton of questions but each time I went into the hospital it was like I couldn't think straight to ask important questions. They released me after two days but I was so defeated from being back there again I went into an even deeper depression upon returning home. I wouldn't eat or drink and my blood sugar was low even before I left the hospital. My husband made me food and said he was standing there until I ate and also said it was time to take the anxiety pills the doctor had prescribed me.
What is so frustrating to me is the lack of information I got not only in the hospital but upon being released. No one told me my heart was "severely" dilated. Granted they did tell me it was dilated but I feel like they should have given me full disclosure of the extent of damage. They did not tell me about the pressure on my heart and the fact that I could end up having pulmonary hypertension. They just said based on my age and vitals they felt I would have 100% recovery and one doctor even went as far to say he thought in three months I would be fully recovered and this would all be a distant memory. Well he was very very wrong.
After my release I dealt with the typical anxiety that all of the PE survivors have mentioned. I was scared to go to sleep up until recently but now I just say flip it I'm getting really tired of not sleeping. I thought I was going to be one of those lucky people who's clot dissolved quickly and I would go right back to normal life. In fact, I did go back to normal life. Four days after getting out of ICU I went back to work full-time and back to school at night pursuing my second degree. I also started exercising right away too. I smugly thought thank God for being young so I could bounce back right away. I soon learned that was a HUGE mistake!! I hit a wall and felt exhausted. Then I started noticing that when I would do activities around the house my heart would race. This immediately terrified me and sent me into a depression. I felt (still feel) like my heart was going to give out at any moment due to the right side heart strain.
Then exactly a month from the date of my release from the hospital I was feeling really well and it was a busy day at work and I was walking around no problem feeling fine. The last hour of work I started having sharp stabbing pains on the left side of my chest. This really freaked me out. I thought maybe I was just having anxiety from the stressful day or maybe my bra was too tight. I went home and was feeling fine and about to cook dinner and turned and felt the stabbing pain again. I freaked out and went and sat my butt down on the couch. I debated going to the ER but it was getting late so I decided to see how I felt in the morning. That night I had the same pains intermittently and the next morning as well. I went in to work as I was finishing up a crucial project but asked my boss if I could leave early. I left and went straight to the ER. They did an EKG, d dimer, and CT scan. They admitted me for observation so they could check my heart enzymes. It was a whole mess with my CT scan which I won't even go into but ultimately after speaking to two doctors and two cardiologists they found there were no new clots and that I had less clot compared to a month ago. How much less they didn't say and me continuing to be ignorant I didn't even ask. I guess I was disappointed to hear they had not completely dissolved. They said the strain on the right side of my heart had improved and again I didn't ask for a more in depth answer. I am usually the type that asks a ton of questions but each time I went into the hospital it was like I couldn't think straight to ask important questions. They released me after two days but I was so defeated from being back there again I went into an even deeper depression upon returning home. I wouldn't eat or drink and my blood sugar was low even before I left the hospital. My husband made me food and said he was standing there until I ate and also said it was time to take the anxiety pills the doctor had prescribed me.
What is so frustrating to me is the lack of information I got not only in the hospital but upon being released. No one told me my heart was "severely" dilated. Granted they did tell me it was dilated but I feel like they should have given me full disclosure of the extent of damage. They did not tell me about the pressure on my heart and the fact that I could end up having pulmonary hypertension. They just said based on my age and vitals they felt I would have 100% recovery and one doctor even went as far to say he thought in three months I would be fully recovered and this would all be a distant memory. Well he was very very wrong.
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