I have just got back from St. Mary's Hospital Rochester. I suffered a near lethal medical event this week and I'm very lucky to be making this post.
This occurred sometime Monday night to Tuesday morning. I found I was very short of breath on trivial exertion when I got up on Tuesday morning. On checking my oxygen saturation I found it dropped on just walking across the bedroom. I had a strong suspicion that I had, had a pulmonary embolism. So I had my wife drive me to the closest Mayo facility at Cannon Falls 30 miles away.
There I had a D-dimer BNP and cardiac troponin. All were very elevated, indicating intravascular clotting and significant cardiac stress and damage. So I went straight to their CT scanner, for CT with and without contrast. This showed a sub-massive saddle pulmonary embolus. This is a large blood clot obstruction the outflow of the right heart right at the bifurcation of the pulmonary trunk, and the division to the left and right pulmonary arteries. Anything above sub-massive is usually found at post mortem and sub-massive ones also often fatal. Full anticoagulation with Heparin was instituted immediately.
So I was red lighted in an ambulance to St. Mary's Hospital Rochester. There cardiac ultrasound showed very significant cardiac dysfunction of the right ventricle with the classic wall motion abnormalities and some blood regurgitating back across the tricuspid valve.
I don't think I need to tell you this was a grave situation. The outcome is that 35% resolve. The rest either require heroic efforts from interventional radiology with uncertain outcome, or observation and going on to a poor quality of life with slow improvement. or continuing slow decline with death following sooner rather than later. There is only a 7 to 10 day window to decide on Intervention.
Well I am glad to say I won the lottery. On walks with the respiratory therapist I was only able to go a few yards, without getting very short of breath and my oxygen levels going down.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I honestly felt my death was imminent.
Yesterday afternoon, Thursday, I went for a walk with the therapist and felt fine. My resting oxygen levels were normal and did not drop with walking and I did not get out of breath. I walked two lengths of the corridor without trouble at a good pace. So I knew immediately I had won a lottery whose odds were much better than Powerball. The embolus had broken up and dispersed.
So, I am back home now and will have to take anticoagulants for the rest of my life.
I feel a bit shattered, but all things considered not too bad and thankful I was in the right third of outcomes.
