FOREWORD
This is another long text block because there weren't any pictures of me taken. This part details the time frame from the moment I was told to the point where I had my medications adjusted so I could continue to live 'my' life. The last part will go through the point where I put my foot on Iron Bog's practice field for the first time in almost 18 months.
Recap from post 1. (aka the TL;DR of post 1)
Part 1 recap: Lots of little details about being injured, and how I self treated and ignored the worsening of the symptoms... which culminated in a Monday morning visit to the local ER and finding of a blood clot in my lung and right leg.
January 5, 2015. Virtua Hospital ER
The doctor kept talking, but I was lost for a few minutes as what he said was happening to me sunk in. Medicines and monitors and hospital monitoring and food restrictions and other things went largely past me... but I came back around as he was saying that the clots had to have come from somewhere and ninety percent of the time, it started in the legs, so they were going to do ultrasounds of the veins in my legs and see what was going on in them. I nodded numbly and sat on the bed, still reeling from this. He was the first one, and definitely not the last, to tell me that if I had been sent home that I would probably not have seen tuesday's sunset... indeed that I probably wouldn't have seen the sun rise the next day. At 5pm Monday evening, I was between 24 hours maximum and as few as 14 hours from having died.I asked questions, I'm not doctor and a lot of the names of the veins and arteries still elude me. So in the most basic of terms, this was the situation I was facing. The clot was what they called a saddle embulous. There is an artery that runs from the heart to the lungs and at a certain location, it splits to go to the left and right lung. The clot had formed directly at that split and it was restricting blood flow into my lungs to carry oxygen to my body. In a very real way, I was suffocating. The vein going into my heart had dilated in an attempt to protect my heart from the slowly increasing back pressure so far that they were concerned that it would rupture before too much longer.
I got hauled off to the room to get the ultrasound. The ultrasound in my left leg was fine, no problems at all. The right leg... virtually no blood flow in the vein running down the inside vein behind my knee. It had collapsed. The knee brace I was using to stabilize the knee... right where the vein had been damaged in the hit I had taken from the strap of the very device worn to protect me from life threatening injury. I talked with the ultrasound tech, who stressed that they were only looking at the image as it was. That they could only interpret what they were seeing, not guess on what caused it. I pinpointed it on my physical body. No doubt at all that it was the strap of my knee cop on my greave that had done this.
They wheeled me back to my ER 'room' and I waited and told mom to go home that there wasn't anything she could do for me at this point. It was getting to be close to 6pm and it was getting dark and I didn't want her to have to drive home alone in the dark. The doctors informed me that there were no empty beds and there wouldn't be until quite some time later after the cleaning crews had cleaned the locations of departed patients. She made me promise to call her and let her know where I ended up when I got there. I called her the next morning. I wasn't moved out of the ER until close to 1am.
After she left, a nurse came in with a clipboard and an IV bag. She then explained I was going to be put on heparin (spelling?). She hung the pouch up on the stand and began asking me questions about any surgeries, bruises, scabs, recently healed wounds that required stitches, etc. She then told me that I would be weighed, the auto-dispenser for the medication would be set, verified by another nurse, then I would have to sign some papers before I could be connected to it.
At this point the nurse explained that the paperwork was a legal thing that was a verification that they explained to me the significant risk of being dosed with this drug posed. In a nutshell: even if they did everything 100% right there was a chance that freshly sealed wounds could open up, scabs would fall off, internal bleeding could occur, and possibly death. It wasn't much of a choice. Dead in 24 hours or die leaking blood from every location my body could allow blood to escape on the table.
So, I signed the paperwork and told them to do it. I waited and they brought in what appeared to be a small industrial scale. I noticed the stickers and decals all down the front pillar and was curious as to how accurate it could be if it was that old... then I noticed... the stickers all looked fairly new. A tech came in and calibrated the scale right in front of me.
I would lie to say I didn't panic at this point and thought seriously about just making my peace with the power that be and take my chances dancing with the reaper. Common sense prevailed though. I was NOT going to get better without intervention. The last 2 weeks had proven that. So, I stoically waited for the nurse to come in to weigh me. It was metric. to the XX.XX kilogram. The dosage chart turned out to be about the same thickness as a shoe box... I was near the back of the book. I was weighed that morning and had been 281 pounds... not terribly skinny for a 75 inch tall guy, but not too bulky either. I was a comfortable size 38-32 jeans size.
One of my oldest friends, possibly my oldest friend (hard to remember who I met first 20+ years ago) had been following my posts and he and his wife drove down that night to visit with me in the ER. Visiting hours ended at 8pm technically, but if people were quiet, they were allowed to stay longer. I guess they ended up staying for about 2 hours. While they were there... being me... I idly wondered what would happen if I waited until a nurse came in to check on me and just slumped over mid sentence. The glare I got was clearly not approving... although there was laughter at the concept.
Eventually they left, and I was finally moved to a room. Another friend came down that afternoon of my first day in a room and did me the major favor of running over to my house and picked up my laptop, headset, and phone charger and then spent several hours. He also downloaded several audiobooks for me to listen to while I was laying there doing nothing... and that's how I first heard of the book 'Ready Player One'... it's a good book and I think anyone that was alive through the 80's would enjoy it.
Over the next few days, most all of my oldest friends from school came to visit me in the hospital. One drove down in an ice storm... and waited until he was at practically at the entrance to the hospital before he sent a message saying he was still coming down, another smuggled in some 'old-fashioned' Dunkin' Donuts unglazed donuts... and they tasted AWESOME.. especially since the hospital's dietary restrictions seemed to update to exclude everything on the list as I ordered it... for no apparent reason.
I spent a lot of time sleeping and listening to doctors tell me how lucky I was that it was caught, that most people didn't survive the initial clot breaking loose and travelling, how close I was to having the artery seal off and how that point would have been too late to do anything, and other such things. I was healing at this point. They had me on breathing treatments to open my lungs to get the blood flow increased to get oxygen to my body, and near the end of my stay, they talked to me about Warfarin Sodium and how vitamin K interacts with it and how most every green vegetable has high amounts and should be avoided. I was also put on a blood pressure pill to help alleviate the strain on the right side of my heart, and sent to have a sleep study done. Apparently having sleep apnea puts additional strain on the right side of the heart.. which was already under so much duress from having tried to cope with the increasing pressures from the blood clot.
Then.. the day of my release and dozens upon dozens of doctor visits for bloodwork, pulmonologists, hematologists, and general check ins with my new doctor. During this time, my company didn't realize I had to file for state disability, and I filed through the disability insurance that the company offered. I was granted a 4 week disability and the whole time totalled a whopping 48 bucks. I drove in to work, wheezing and panting and aching chested, to try to figure out why I was getting about 2% of my weekly salary when I believed I should have been getting more like 80%.
There were phone calls made... things were found out. I had to file for the state disability. It required paperwork from my job, my doctor, and myself. The doctor's portion was completed the next day, my portion as well. The company sat on their portion of the forms that only required them to write my weekly salary twelve times and then sign and date it for almost another month. I had originally started out by being about two weeks past the thirty day deadline for filing from the date of the original hospital admittance. I was now almost a month and a half past due and had to file an appeal with the initial claim. I threw the company under the bus for sitting on the form for so long and then stated further the other details about not knowing and sent it all out for judgement.
I got the notification that it had been received. I got a notification stating it had been rejected due to the delay in between the injury and the expiration of the eligibility time and when I had physically filed. I got the notification my appeal was being revealed. All on the same day in the mail. I had just given up on getting anything, when it was approved and was granted a back amount. I promptly used it to pay some of the seven thousand dollars in doctor's bills that had accumulated. Fun fact: an insurance company can reject your blood work claims at the hospital your admitted in if they have a location you are supposed to go to for blood work that is free of charge.
After one of my blood drawings, I got a call from my normal doctor. His nurse told me I was to reduce my warfarin dosage, be rechecked in two days, and avoid doing anything more than walking if I could help it... preferably not even walking. My blood had been so thinned that there was a real risk that any clot material that was left in my chest or leg could have been broken down to the point where it would come loose in a clump. I was now at risk of having a blood clot travel to my brain or into my heart and kill me. This was fixed over a two week window
I was cleared to go back to work near the end of february... about seven weeks from the date of my ER visit It was tough. I had problems. I was in the ER again. One morning, I woke up and was shuffling around doing the usual morning prep to go to work. I was on the floor before I even realized I was feeling the pain. It felt like someone had driven a 3 inch diameter icicle had been stabbed directly into the right center of my chest at about heart height. It was cold and hurt A LOT. I gathered myself up... wondered what it was and filed it under things to ask my doctor that afternoon at my appointment.
At this point... I have to thank the SCA heavy list for my discipline and pain management ability. I was driving into work and a couple of blocks from the turn off to the hospital it happened again. I lurched forward and my arms spasmed and I started to veer off the road. Grimly, I locked my hand on the steering wheel and straightened the car out. It hit again and I didn't veer this time, I'd locked my arms and rode the wave of pain out, but I did turn at the road to the hospital. I explained to the doctors what I'd felt, what my medical situation was and they went (surprise here, I'm sure) HEART ATTACK!
They tested me twice. Once right after I was triaged in, and then again about 4 hours later. The tests showed nothing that there were elevated enzyme levels that were indicative of muscle breakdown... they were not high enough to be consistent with a heart attack. At this point, they listened to what I had to say... and agreed that it was probably simple muscle atrophy from my prolonged recovery situation. I was diagnosed with.. dyspnea.. a fancy word for 'cannot breath properly'.
In the end of March, I was cleared to return to work and struggled to do a simple task like push a broom for a day. To my boss's credit, he gave me the EASIEST tasks that one can be given in a production plant, but I was still seriously sensitive to fumes and odors. Strenuous activity caused my chest to hurt and more than one occasion I had to sit and just ride the waves of pain in my chest. I was kept far away from the welders. I swept floors, drove the fork lift, took out garbage, and occasionally drilled some holes or ran a tap through a hole. In time, I returned to normal and fumes and odors didn't phase me, so I got more and more back to the usual work day.
April came along and I went to Balfar's Challenge just to visit my SCA family. I saw people, watched the fighting, got sun burned, and went home. I was depressed. I'd taken time off from fighting in the past, but they had always been voluntary breaks... and would return. The doctors were telling me my days in armor were done, that any bruise could be lethal to me, a small cut could cause me to bleed out, that any slight bump could cause me bleed internally. I realize they were semi-scare tactics to get me to understand how dangerous the drug that I would be taking for the rest of my life could be. I understood. Elastic in my normal socks caused bruising... I still wear diabetic socks because of this... but also.. because they actually stay up unlike normal socks.
I had taken to eating to console myself and I paid for it. Blood sugar levels began to get high. I Diabetes runs in my family. It is the ONLY thing I fear in life. I put on weight. I hit 325 pounds and had to buy size 44 pants. I started to have severe problems with water retention and circulation in my legs from all the sitting I was doing at night after work and on weekends.
There were many nights were I sat and read facebook. People getting elevated that I knew and wanted to be there but wasn't cleared to do the cramped car ride or feeling up to the trip. Events I normally fought at and couldn't. The thought of not putting armor on crushed me. I cried so many nights, feeling like the only thing I ever have truly enjoyed had been taken from me in as crushing a way as possible. I knew I could have called any one of my friends at any given time and talked with them, but I couldn't. It was too personal to me... the grief, the pain, and most all my friends at this point were in the SCA and I didn't want to hear the attempts at alleviating my depression. I wasn't ready.
At 9 months past the injury date I had the option of being removed from the blood thinners. All 3 doctors recommended heavily against it, but the hematologist convinced me to stay on them. He carefully explained to me that if it had just been a clot and there had been no travel involved, he would not have any problem with removing me. He further explained that I fall in a small group of people with a very high risk because the clot breaking loose is a very uncommon thing, but the majority of people who have this happen and remove themselves from the blood thinners, that there is a VERY HIGH likelihood that if there were to be another clot... that it would almost definitely break loose and there would be none of the interim stuff between it travelling and me ending up in a coffin.
I was sold on the concept of staying alive. we struck a compromise because my elastic based welding gear was bruising me constantly and that was a problem that needed fixing. A normal person has an INR (clotting time) of 1. A person on blood thinners is supposed to be between 2 and 3. My INR this whole time had been solidly at a 2.5 on a 6mg dose. The hematologist said that he would go as low as 1.8 as an allowable minimum, that it should help with the bruising and bleeding since getting cut is an inevitable event working with metal and reduce the internal bleeding risk from being hit.
I was also still tossing around the desire to get back in armor. I was told I was crazy by all 3 doctors, but none of them could fault me for not wanting to go the path of morbid obesity and diabetic coma and amputation if I didn't start fighting. I'd been going to a gym and NOTHING had changed for me in regards to my overall health, weight, and breathing. I laid out my position and asked for opinions, and in true friend fashion, I got many generic responses which said that they'd like to keep me around for as long as possible which were appreciated but not answering the dilema I had. I wanted thoughts from the outside that weren't as biased as my brain was. I had been reading the Unbelted Champion's unofficial facebook page pasts and I missed being 'there'. I had to fight again. Especially since I had just received my OTC directly after a crushing Eastern Unbelt victory by a King and Queen whom I respect very much. I had reached a point where people had noticed I did things on the battlefield and seen fit to give me an award that only the people in the group could give, I had to demonstrate to them that I was worthy of their decision... I got my armor out and started cleaning it up. Leather gets fuzzy if it sits to long in a damp environment. Mine wasn't fuzzy, but it definitely needed a vinegar/bleach bath.
I'm going to cut this part here. The last part will cover the time from my first practice back to the beginning of this past Pennsic... a total of 20 months from injury to my return on the combat field of the Unbelted Champions.
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