March 27, 2009

A LITTLE COMPLICATION:

O.K., so I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but I always get in trouble with people when they find out something happened that I didn’t tell them about. So in the interest of full disclosure, we had a little scare yesterday.

Evan woke up with a very sore arm and a painful lump on the inside of his right arm, just below the crease of his elbow. The lump was about an inch and a half long and seemed to follow the path of the most prominent vein on his arm.

We got in to see Evan’s primary care doctor around 11:00 am. Dr. Riessen was quite sure that it was either a blood clot or some kind of infection. They tested Evan’s blood and sure enough, it was really thick. Evan’s blood has been very stable for the last several months, so this just came out of nowhere. Evan’s INR (which measures the viscosity of the blood) has been hovering between 2.4 and 2.7 for months, which is perfect! But yesterday it had dropped to 1.2 - way too thick!

So they sent us over to the hospital for an ultrasound, which took forever!!! Finally, around 3:00 pm, they confirmed that Evan did indeed have a blood clot in his arm. They decided it wasn’t bad enough to require hospitalization (which Evan was happy about), but I’ll be giving him shots twice a day for the next four days in addition to the blood thinner he takes orally. We’ll go back in on Monday to make sure Evan’s INR is back up where it needs to be, and hopefully that will be it.

I have to admit, I was pretty rattled yesterday! It seems like every time I start to think life is going to calm down a little bit, something happens to remind me how fast life can change. It’s a good thing to remember, but a little disturbing at the same time. I’m doing much better today, and Evan was as calm as can be through the whole thing. “No big deal,” he says.

Thanks for listening!
Margot