So the night of day ten changed the course of my healing a bit and may change the course of this blog a bit. I had been resting the ankle quite a bit throughout the day. The night before was pretty uncomfortable, so I had to skip a party in the afternoon. Instead we decided to do something low key and have friends over. It was wonderful...they brought me some healing ice cream cake and provided the much needed distraction from the pains.
Unfortunately the nit took a weird twist, when I suddenly started to feel a sense of nausea and then felt that I couldn't breathe in all the way. I had been doing so much reading that I knew that this could be a sign of a pulmonary embolism. I started to sweat a ton and felt like I was breathing in, but just not getting enough oxygen.I wasn't sure if the feeling had gone away, but the sense of dread was still coursing through my veins. So, I ended up crashing the party with a trip to the emergency room.
The ER took me in right away and they immediately placed an IV on me (after missing a vein). They took four vials of blood samples and the doctor told me that a pulmonary embolism is pretty rare, but still worth checking out. So they wheeled me into a CT scan of my chest. The injected a dye and basically said that I would feel a warm sensation throughout my body and would make me think I peed myself. I felt it exactly like she describe. They put me through the scanner laying on my back and had me hold my breath and then start to breath. Twice for two pictures. That was it...and it went by pretty quickly. As the dye wore off, I fell shivers for a little bit as they wheeled me back to the ER room.
The ER doc came in and said that it was the right thing to do to get it checked out. They looked at the results of the cat scan and saw no evidence of an embolism. They had me do the usual physical tests where they listen to your chest while you breathe in and out as well as cough everything sounded Norma. Then they did an ECG on me, where they taped these white sensors all over your chest to see how your heart is beating. Then another where they tape all these black sensors to your chest and knees and they hook up what looks like jumper cables to each one. I asked, and I guess it's supposed to take an image of your heart. They didn't find anything abnormal there either. So, he just chalked it up to asthma that I had when I was a kid.
He said everything would be ok and had someone from respiratory give me instructions on using an inhaler. So,after all that I seemed to alm down a bit. I didn't feel anything else weird the rest of the night.
Day Eleven
So, the next day I woke up and for the most part felt pretty normal. I didn't have a lot of sleep, cuz the events had freaked me out so much. I was going through my normal routine of pretty much just laying down and elevating my ankle. Then I got up and crutches around and then sat down on one of the couches and bam! It hits me again. A little bit to a lesser extent than the night before...but kinda a pang of overwhelming dread...like something bad is about to happen. I didn't break out into sweats this time, just decided to lay down instead.
I basically laid there, kind of afraid to get up and experience this "doom" sensation again. I thought maybe it was cuz I've been inactive for eleven straight days and my body didn't know how to deal with inactivity. So I decided to crutch around and spend some energy. It seemed to have helped as it didn't really occur when u was crunching around. I had stopped for a moment and then it happened again. Same feeling...it was like my heart pounced really quickly and then that danger feeling occurred. It's really hard to describe of you haven't felt it before. It's like your body's way of telling you that something bad is about to happen...but in my case it just creates a bit of nausea and then eventually dissipates. Almost like the feeling you get when you hold your breath to its limit right before you exhale. Only, at youre breathing in normally, just still not getting enough oxygen.
I felt like I was going crazy. I read some things that point to anxiety or panic attacks, which commonly occurs after quitting oxycodone. I had really been on the ox for a few days at its minimum dosage, but who knows?
I had to skip another event, just due to both the ankle being painful and my nerves being shot. My girlfriend was wondering and brought home some KFC and we ate it outside on the patio. I didn't realize it, but this was pretty much the first time I've been out of the house since the surgery. It's been pretty hot, and I've been in pain and on basically bed rest. I felts the pangs a couple of more times, even though it was a nice mix in my recent activities.
Anyways, that night, was a bad ankle night...probably from all the crunching around trying to get exercise. The ankle burned up and it felt like it was boiling on the inside of my cast. I didn't want to take an oxy or a tylenol as that is the only thing I changed since the issues started happening. So, it made for a pretty miserable night of very little sleep.
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