Okay, so this was scary.
To the untrained eye, it looked like I was sleeping on the couch last Thursday afternoon. But actually I was, um, letting my subconscious work on a slew of ideas that would bring me fame and fortune. As that was happening, suddenly I was jolted awake by a piercingly sharp pain in my lower left calf. It wasn't an ongoing pain, just one sharp stab.
When I took a look at my leg, my calf was slightly swollen and larger than my right one.
So I thought if there's any place that'll know what this is it's the interwebs. What I learned was there may actually be a little too much information available online.
What the symptoms were shaking out to looked like DVT, or Deep Vein Thrombosis. That's a blood clot deep in an interior vein in the leg. The problem with that is the clot can break up, and go to the brain or heart causing a stroke.
I'm not a hypochondriac. I'll sit with a pounding headache for hours before I resort to taking something for it. Most of the time, I just tough it out. However, clot, swelling, stroke? Not so much. But instead of racing to the ER like I probably should've done, I waited until Friday morning when I went to my doctor's office.
Because I needed to see my doctor, naturally he was on vacation. So instead I met with his physician's assistant, who come to find out was awesome and probably more involved than my doctor would've been.
She took a look at my legs - and I do have fabulous legs so I'm used to this - and agreed it was swollen for no apparent reason. She sent me to have an ultrasound of my calf. She said if they saw a clot, they would immediately send me to the ER and start me on anticoagulant meds to stop further clotting. If they didn't see a clot they'd send me home.
The technician was great in that way someone is when you know they've seen this a million times before. She took about a thousand images like the one you see here. Now technically, the technician isn't allowed to tell me the results. A doctor has to read the images, write a report and then send it to my doctor.
But after the ultrasound was done, and I asked her if it was a boy or a girl (BAM! Thank you. I'll be here all week.), she looked at me and said, "You're free to go home." She waited a second, then said, "Do you understand? You're free to go home."
Relieved, I thanked her, put my pants on and went home. Another thing I'm used to.
However, all weekend long, my calf would swell up, then I'd take Aleve and ice it, and the swelling would go back down. But because I hadn't heard the official ultrasound verdict from my doctor, I felt like a ticking bomb.
So first thing this morning, I went back to the physician's assistant. She showed me the report that said everything was fine, and we decided I'd probably injured my calf on something and didn't remember. Her prescription was continue the Aleve and ice for five days, and give it about three weeks to heal completely.
And if anything changes we'll reevaluate the situation. But she doesn't think it will.
Me being me, I spent most of the weekend worrying and telling my wife over and over how to spot a stroke (something everyone should know). My kids had a track meet and a jazz concert this weekend, so I put on a brave face even though all I could think about was how disappointed they were going to be by the inheritance.
But thankfully, it looks like they won't have to worry about it for a long while.
So now, I'm fit and ready to get back to what I was doing when this all started.
After all, it's a very comfortable couch.
