No Stint

I woke up crying. That can never be a good sign. I must have heard the Drs. who knows. Well, they could not place the stint in my leg because the left illiac vein was completely occluded (closed, blocked). The stint should have been placed three years ago when I was in the ICU and they were removing the clot. The upside is that I have two smaller veins doing the work for the larger vein and they are healthy and working! I will continue to wear my sexy compression stockings and take blood thinners. I was disappointed. But know I know. I know what I am dealing with and how things really are. I am not wondering about the vein anymore. This just makes me upset that more doctors don't know about MTS. When I was in the ICU in INOVA, they missed it. It happened, I need to move forward.

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!

It all started on September 3. Mauricio and I went for a hike at Great Falls and I felt like I was having menstrual cramps, but they were kind of at the top of my leg too! I just took some tylenol and ignored it. On Monday, I was having trouble driving my car (a standard). There was pain when I hit the pedal to switch gears. I just thought that I had a pulled muscle because the month before I pulled something during yoga. On Wednesday, I had an interview with one of my clients at the Arlington Asylum Office at 9:30 but the Asylum Adjudicator ldid not call my clients until 4:00 pm, so I was sitting the entire day. I was almost unable to walk when I got out of there. My clients were helping me to my car. I called Mauricio and told him to meet me downstairs. He made me dinner which I could not hold down. My pants on the left leg were incredibly tight and my leg was purple and huge. I told Mauricio to call 911 because I could not stop vomiting.... anyway long story short the Paramedics told me I had a muscle strain and to see a doctor the next day. My sister came home and was like "oh my gosh" you have a blood clot. We called 911 again because I could not walk and they came and rushed me to the emergency room. I was scared. So I had an ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis. From my abdomen to my calf it was a blood clot. I was in the ICU for 3 days and then 3 days in the other part of the hospital. I really wish that the gyno would have described the side effects and not dismissed my very real symptoms to YAZ (the pill). I hear more and more from women that the pill has caused them to go through a lot of medical issues and made them sick.