Clots and Shots is what I Gots

On February 17, I limped into my outpatient appointment, with a decided pain in my left calf muscle. Doctor Haman was not overly concerned, but ordered an ultrasound. The result showed a large blood clot in my left calf. Now, Dr. Haman was concerned, and ordered a CAT scan, which revealed a smaller clot in my right calf, and, more ominously, a piece of the original left-side clot that had broken off and lodged in my lung. Dr. Haman immediately ordered a filter to be inserted in the inferior vena cava, to prevent a stroke if a bigger chunk of the clot broke off. Then there was the problem of deaing with the clots. Normally, you would use IV heparin to respond to a clot of this size, but it would not be possible because my platelets were depressed from the chemo--so IV heparin would cause internal bleeding. The compromise was a single daily shot of fragmin--admininstered with great skill by nurse Florence herself!--which broke up the clots very slowly, but prevented internal bleeding. So, that has been the past week--recovering gangbusters from the transplant, but very slowly from the clots. As for clotting, it is a side effect described in the literature, but it is very rare, so no one was expecting it. Looking forward, tomorrow (Thursday) will be Day 13 post-transplant. Goals continue to be to get the the White Blood Cell counts up over 1000 for three consecutive days. Today, they clocked in at 300. And, of course, continuing to redcue the clotting is an ongoing priority.