emergency room – KURT OF THE BURNED LEY

Most of us are probably familiar with the television drama scene where the doctor, prim in his white lab coat, sits at his desk in his office with a husband and wife sitting across from him. The couple seems apprehensive, knowing that their doctor called them in to tell them something very serious. And then doctor gently breaks the news to the couple that the husband has cancer. When the couple hears the news, the wife softly sobs into her husband’s shoulder as the husband resolutely asks the doctor both what are his chances and what are his options. You can imagine how the rest of the story goes. It is a typical Marcus Welby M. D. scene. However, life is not a television show, at least it isn’t for me.

The Johns Hopkins University Hospital is located on the east side of Baltimore and the main hospital is very much an inner city hospital. So, after circling around the block several times in an effort to find a place to park, and after walking what seemed at least a mile in the rain (Can you feel the melodrama starting to seep in?), I entered the hospital way out of my element and more than a little upset about having a leg full of blood clots.

Languages other than English were being spoken. Even when English was being spoken, it was often as a second language. Other than the fact that I felt like I had entered a United Nations sponsored medical bazaar, the emergency room experience started out like most emergency room experiences: long periods of waiting while sitting in uncomfortable chairs in a crowded room full of loud conversations. Eventually, I made my way through the process: check in; vital signs taken and blood drawn; move to the next waiting room to be screened; screened; move to another waiting room to wait to be seen by the on duty physician; move to the curtain-enclosed room to meet with the on duty physician; more waiting.

By this time my wife had arrived. We both waited in the small room–a large nook with a hospital bed is a better description–behind a privacy curtain. The emergency room was busy and we heard all of its busy noises, including the on duty drunk moaning and complaining about something that I could not understand. Every time he would moan, someone would holler at him to hurry up and go to sleep. A nurse entered and quizzed me with a slew of questions while she poked and prodded with her fingers and hands and listened intently with her stethoscope. With the promise that the doctor would be seeing us soon, the nurse left my wife and me to continue our pondering as to why in the heck I had a leg full of blood clots.

Finding Out – Part I

Of course once I was diagnosed with leukemia I immediately understood why I had become so tired so often beginning sometime around the end of July 2009. Physically, the year started out great. I had ankle surgery in 2007 for a dislocated tendon on my left ankle so I had not really worked out since then. But at the beginning of 2009 my ankle felt pretty good and I began running and working out. I kept it up until mid-August when I had to stop because I just did not have the energy to work out any more. I assumed it was because of Lyme disease. I was infected with that garbage way back in 2005 and had been suffering from its symptoms–lethargy and achy joints–ever since. As a result, I was not too concerned about my health at that time.

It was not until mid-November when my body made some physical alterations that forced me to take note. I was out mowing the grass, typically a three-hour project, when suddenly all of my energy drained from me. I was only about an hour into the job but I had to stop. Football was on so it was not too hard to convince myself to take a break. I made it to the TV room, put on the game and kicked my feet up. Because I was so exhausted, I fell asleep almost immediately but was soon awaken by severe cramping in my left calf and foot. My feet and ankles occasionally cramp up when I sleep so, again, I did not think much about it, even though the cramps continued through most of the afternoon.

When I woke up the next day I had what I thought was a big charlie horse in my left calf. Also, my left ankle was swollen and sore. I wrapped them and off to work I went. This went on for a week when I went to the doctor’s for a check up. I still thought I was suffering from a muscle cramp so that was how I articulated the symptoms to my doctor. He checked out my leg and told me to come back in a week if the condition persisted. The condition persisted and by a week later, my entire calf and ankle had swollen to what seemed was double its size. Back to the doctor I went. My doctor was not available so I was seen by my wife’s doctor. By this time I knew I was not suffering from a muscle cramp. I thought that perhaps I got bitten by a bug or some other poisonous critter and that is what I told my wife’s doctor. She took one look at my leg and without hesitation told me that I was suffering from blood clots.

Blood clots!? What the–! What is a healthy, forty-four year-old guy like me doing with blood clots? I do not eat too much junk. I do not smoke. I drink too much wine and coffee perhaps, but is seems that they should thin my blood, right? And what the heck did I do all that working out practically all year for if I still ended up with blood clots? I did not have too much time to reflect in the doctor’s office because she immediately sent me off to the emergency room. On my drive over, I did reflect. More accurately, I stressed out on the fact that I may soon be on blood thinning medicine, perhaps even the same medicine that my father is on. I was still battling with my current state of affairs when I limped my way in to the emergency room.