never a dull moment: the blood clot edition

On Monday, I got a call from the nurse who works with my oncologist. I had a CT scan last week, so the phone call made me I brace myself for the worst kind of news.Instead, she said " You have a blood clot on your lung. "What unfolded next is a bit blurry but I know that I asked if there was cancer on the CT (no), whether this was life-threatening ( " absolutely not " ) and what I should do next.I was instructed to get myself to a specific ER (at the General Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, which also houses the Cancer Centre). They would be told to expect me. Tim and I gathered up our stuff, made sure Daniel would be OK and headed out the door. We were at the hospital in 20 minutes.We then proceeded to wait for more than 6 hours to be seen by a doctor. I established that there was a note on my file, saying that I was coming in but that didn ' t seem to make a difference in my waiting time. When I finally saw a nurse, she told me that they didn ' t have a bed for me (I didn ' t think I was waiting for one) but that she would do a blood draw and they would give me a " loading dose " of the blood thinner that would attack the clot.She also gave me Benadryl because I had an allergic reaction to the bracelet they ' d put on me to alert everyone to my allergy to sulfa drugs.I probably spent 5 minutes with a doctor. I was given a shot, sent home and told to expect a call from the Thrombosis Clinic in the morning.We were at emerg for a total 7 hours, into the very early morning.At 7:3...
Source: Not just about cancer - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: breast cancer cancer blog chronic illness CT scan health care metastatic pissed off Source Type: blogs