Sunday, 23 January 2011

Bloodclots!

Bloodclots have caused a fraught weekend. On Saturday morning Jo complained of pain under her right breast, running up to the armpit. Breathing was painful and she was flushed of face with an elevated temperature.

I dialled 999 and an ambulance was at the house within five minutes, with a paramedic in attendance. An ECG test confirmed this was not a heart attack but, as the pain was persistent and Jo's breathing obviously laboured we agreed she should go to hospital.

Once there an examination and chest X-ray showed fluid on her lungs. Further tests, including a CT scan of her chest were then conducted to try and find the cause.

Because the radiologist had gone home by this time it took until 3 o'clock in the morning to determine the cause of the excess fluid was a series of blood clots in her lungs. These had probably been caused by her being immobile for so long over Xmas. Warfarin and Heparin have been administered to. thin the blood and they will be monitoring that over the next few days. She is also on water tablets to reduce the fluid in her lungs and antibiotics just in case any infection should creep in.

All in all a tense weekend and we are not out of the woods yet. Jo will need further tests to make sure the clots have been cleared and there is no underlying condition.
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Posted by Unknown at 17:49

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Different strokes...

It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.