I guess I was getting too complacent and optimistic.
Today I went in for an ultrasound on my leg — it had turned blue after the angioplasty, and although color returned within a few hours, they still wanted to take a peek.
I was supposed to have this done last week, but they made the appointment at the wrong department; it was rescheduled for today, two days after I saw the cardiologist. I wish it had been before.
When the tech was done, she asked me to wait around a minute, which got me worrying. When she came back, she matter-of-factly told me that there was a clot in my leg and I needed to go to the emergency room.
I didn’t heed her advice.
I don’t know, I told myself that I would be less skittish about calling 911 or going to the hospital; but this was nuts. How could this be an emergency when they waited three weeks to do the ultrasound? And even when I was having a heart attack, I still waited three hours in the ER before they took a look at me.
Add to this the fact that I’ve got people flying in tomorrow morning and had a ton of things to do today, and I wanted a second opinion.
Luckily, everything is in the same building at Kaiser Santa Clara, so I went down the hall to my cardiologist’s office. He wasn’t there, but his nurse also wanted me to go to emergency. But she got the doctor on the phone, and to my relief he echoed my thoughts: that it has been three weeks and spending all day and night in the emergency room waiting wasn’t going to do me any good. He said to go home and he would call me.
A few hours later, he called back after consulting with everyone involved. He told me that the treatment would be outpatient and pharmaceutical, so there was no reason to go to the ER. Instead, he had me go back to the medical center, where I was given two new prescriptions: an anti-coagulant which takes a week to kick in; and to take up the slack until then, a twice-daily injection.
So, the party will go on. But I have yet another pill to take, and I’ll be sticking myself with a needle twice a day. I’ll have to duck out at least once this weekend to run up to the medical center for another blood draw; but this is all so much better than spending a sleepless, annoying night in the ER and possible being admitted to the hospital so that they can inject me twice a day.
I really like my cardiologist.
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