Thursday, October 18, 2018

Blood is no longer thicker than water

Blood is no longer thicker than water - at least not my blood.

They sprung me from the hospital late Wednesday afternoon. They never did particularly find out what caused my stroke, so they decided to thin my blood by getting me to take Lovenox. Well, I don't take it; I inject it, twice a day. They also want me to start taking statins - not that I have high cholesterol - just that it seems to reduce recurrence of strokes. They also tell me that it might make me feel achy.

My hospital stay was relatively uneventful - as it should have been given that all they did during my stay was to give me a single CAT scan which took about five minutes. I went in Monday at around 10 AM and cooled my heels in the ER for 11 hours until about 9:00 PM. Barbara and I sat there and read books. They then moved me to a shared room on the 16th floor where they connected a bunch of wires to me using special tabs. These become one with the patient's skin, so that they cannot be removed. These tabs are then electronically wired to some device that alerts the staff if you start to fall asleep so they can come in to measure blood pressure or poke you for some other reason.

But, the important thing is that I am now out and can get to work shooting up the drugs that will thin my blood to prevent further strokes.

My oncologist tells me that he is taking me off of chemo for a couple of weeks so that I can recover. I am looking forward to the break. It will be interesting to what happens with my side effects.

So, after all of this, I seem to be pretty much OK. I might not be quite as solid on my feet as I was a week ago, but I don't have any trouble standing or walking, so I am not complaining. I will stop writing now. I have to go give myself a shot.

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