it ain't over until the fat lady sings

You may have noticed that I dropped out of sight again. Or not. It’s not completely unusual for me to get busy and not post for a week. You might have figured that I was busy cleaning up the yard. That would be a big nope. Nothing has been done about that. The only difference is that now everything is brown.

What happened was that the hospital called on Thursday to check on me after the angiogram, asked if I had removed the pressure bandage yet, no, and to go ahead and remove it, clean the incision site, and put a bandaid on it. So I did. When I went to bed Thursday night I noticed four or five small thumbprint size bruises on my inner thigh that had not been there when I took the bandage off. Two hours later those spots were all connected. When I woke up Friday morning it had become a red and slightly purple bruise bigger than my handprint. That was alarming so I called the doctor’s office first thing and reported what was going on. The NP called back, some bruising was normal but the doctor ordered an ultrasound for today and to call the imaging center and make an appointment. They couldn’t see me until 2:30 and by noon the bruise was still spreading and my thigh was swelling. Since I was starting to freak out a little we left at noon hoping they could get me in earlier if I was there but en route I called the doctor’s office again, reported the increased bruising and swelling and asked if I should go to the ER instead. Yes, she said, get thee to the ER.

I didn’t get the ultrasound until 5:30. By then the bruising and swelling had stabilized. I had been taking the blood thinner but when I saw my thigh that morning I didn’t take it. Turns out I should not have started taking it again until 24 hours after the angiogram but they failed to tell me that. Anyway, the ultrasound showed a ‘pseudo aneurysm’ at the site where the catheter was inserted in my femoral artery for the angiogram and even though it had stopped actively bleeding they admitted me to the hospital. The surgical PA examined me Saturday morning, paged the vascular surgeon who was slow to respond so he put another pressure bandage on the incision site and a sand bag on top of that to see if that would close up the pseudo aneurysm. Then another ultrasound Sunday which showed that while it had decreased some it had not closed all the way and surgery was scheduled for Monday.

While I was in pre-op Monday talking to the surgical assistant about the difference between an aneurysm and a pseudo aneurysm I asked which was more dangerous. Pseudo aneurysm. Great, of course it was. So the surgeon made a 2 1/2” incision to put one stitch in my femoral artery, declared the surgery a success and they discharged me from the hospital Tuesday. So now I’ll have another identifying scar if my headless body ever turns up.

I was supposed to have the Watchman procedure Monday to get me off the blood thinner but I called the electrophysiologist’s office when I was in the ER and it was canceled. I still intend to have it but I’ll wait a while. As the floor doctor told me on Sunday it was a good procedure for people my age on blood thinners to get because that’s when we start falling and hitting our heads and bleeding. Fun guy, but I suppose he’s right. 

All this because I mistook an intense afib episode for some sort of heart failure but at least I know my heart is good, my lungs are good, and my vessels aren’t all clogged up.

Can my life get more exciting?