More Fun!

OK, this goes back about a month...

Pam had had a chest scan, and the doctor's office phoned back right away. Apparently the radiologist had spotted some blood clots in her lungs and this is something they want to address very quickly. So Pam had to go back to the doctor and get started on anti-coagulant drugs to try and prevent further clots. They also took her off her tamoxifen as they thought that this had contributed to the clotting.

So after a week or so of daily injections, the INR (clotting coefficient of the blood) was back close to normal, so they discontinued the injections. Big mistake ;-)

Soon Pam had developed a big clot in her leg, it was quite swollen and she ended up going to HSC Emergency on June 5. Then the daily injections had to start again.

Pam had another CT scan yesterday and it showed another large clot in her right lung. So out of caution the doctor scheduled an urgent procedure to implant an IVC filter - "IVC" being "inferior vena cava", the blood vessel that feeds the heart. The idea of putting a filter there is to stop any roaming blood clots from getting where they shouldn't. The filter is made of titanium and is inserted via a catheter through a vein in the leg. (I told Pam to make sure they used a "K&N" brand filter with the million-mile guarantee ;-)

We arrived at the hospital as required at 9am for the procedure at 11... but HSC being what it is they didn't get her in the OR until 1pm. In any event the procedure went very well, Pam was asleep through the whole thing, and just as I am writing this at 4:30pm she called me from the hospital and was sounding very good. So I will pick her up after I am done here and we will try to have a quiet weekend.