A diagnosis

Mauricio, Dawn and I drove up to JH this morning for a consulatation with a vascular surgeon. First, I had to get a CAT scan of my pelvis, which was not a big deal. Then we headed upstairs to meet with Dr. Hassun. The entire appointment was very quick and as soon as he looked at the results he knew why I had clotted, May Thurner Syndrome. It was pretty neat to see it on the CAT scan. There were the two illiac veins headed toward the legs and then the one on the left got very small, squished. Well, anatomically the left illiac is under another vein and close to the spine causing it to be "squished". That is my term for it at least. Apparently there are a lot of women with this condition and it is much more common in women then men. Dr. Hassun was confident that we should just put a stint in the vein and no worry about it. The stint would keep the vein open and would make it safer for pregnancy for the future. I would check with Dr. Kessler at Georgetown but that it looked like a go and he could do the surgery in JH in April or May. We went home happy. The diagnosis closed a chapter of uncertainty. No clotting disorder!