BAD THINGS COME IN THREES?

Once again, Don is in the hospital. This time something, while unexpected to him, is not as uncommon as you would think.

Today was supposed to be a day off work to finish up my Christmas shopping, to avoid those horrible weekend crowds. Instead, I spent most of the day at the hospital ER.

Don had an early morning appointment to get the stitches out of the incision from the Achilles surgery. He wasn't feeling good last night, and even worse this morning. He complained about not being able to breathe very well, felt lightheaded, and had pain in his right side.

I wondered if he had pulled a muscle using the crutches, causing him the acute discomfort. Arriving at his appointment, I noticed he was moving much slower than any time since being on crutches and also just didn't seem to have the energy to get up and around.

Fortunately, he mentioned it to the doctor, who wondered if it might be a pulmonary blood clot! I never thought of that as being a problem. Apparently, people with leg casts have this problem more than you would think. He recommended that he go straight to the ER and get it checked out.

That was at 8:30 am. We arrived at the ER before 9 am. At 3:30 pm, he was still in the ER and nothing had been diagnosed yet as to his problem. This after 2 CT scans and a chest x-ray. I finally left then because they decided to admit him for the night, and went and did a few errands, got something to eat (finally!), and then came back later.

By then, it was determined he had a blood clot in his lungs, so they put him immediately on blood thinners and of course will now have to continue with blood thinners for the rest of his life.

Fortunately he saw his doctor today or who knows what might have happened! It is diagnosed as a pulmonary emoblism, but it might have caused a stroke or killed him. What a weird turn of events! First the cancer, then the Achilles, and now the blood clot. I'm hoping bad things stop at three.