Put your left leg in...

and leave it in.

I couldn't take it anymore, so yesterday, I went to my regular family practice clinic and saw a Physicians Assistant I had never seen before.

She looked at me, at my leg, and told me to call Friday morning and they would set me up with an ultrasound on my left leg.

Soooo...this morning, I talked to Bunny, who set up an 11:30am ultrasound at WestHealth. The tech who performed it, Jenny, was a very sweet and thorough woman who took 15 minutes alone just looking at the veins behind my knee. Altogether it took about half an hour for her to look over the entire leg. I was impressed and I knew something was wrong.

Sure enough, Jenny comes to get me and calls the PA I had seen at the clinic. The PA tells me they found a smallish clot behind my knee. I see spending the next week in the hospital flash before my eyes.... painful insertion of the IV... bad food... and all. I'm sure I had a mini panic attack right there.

The PA says she's going to call my Hematologist to get information together on what to do and if I should need to goto the hospital right away. Mind you, I've had two clots - the first one I was in the hospital for a week. The second one I was in for 3 days. I didn't know there was any other option.

The PA and my Hematologist discuss it; they will up my dosage of Lovenox to 2 shots a day 150mg each, PLUS I'll be taking Coumadin 10mg for an unspecified amount of time and I am told "you can't get pregnant for 6 months - we'll have you on the Coumadin for a 6 month cycle".

Coumadin crosses the placenta and can cause a number of problems in fetuses including birth defects. It's bad, baaaadd mojo on babies.

At the time, this doesn't concern me - I'm just ECSTATIC that I don't have to goto the hospital unless I experience other symptoms (shortness of breath, chest pain, etc to signify a possible pulmonary embolism).

The PA tells me to take it very easy this weekend, doing as little as possible and giving the meds time to work, with a check for INR and Protime on Monday morning with them. Yay. Another needle. Whoooppyyy!

So I go home after calling my supervisor from the ultrasound office, and start thinking. Who the HELL has the right to take away my reproductive rights? If they had put me on two shots of 100mg of Lovenox and kept me at that dosage, I doubt I'd be going through this right now, and I still would have been cleared for pregnancy.

I get real upset over this with Dave and he is on my side. He knows he's not getting any younger, and I don't want Alli to be so old that she can be copped into being a built in babysitter without me trying to make her that way. I'll be talking to Dr. Weinshel come Monday. I mean, sure, I can wait a couple months, but 6?? Alli will be 7 by the time the baby is born then, even if we conceived right away.

Sigh.

Yes, I know my health is important, and everything has been FINE up until now. If only they would have doubled my doses...

I solemnly swear not to do anything stupid. And once my leg feels better, sure, I can walk more, and FINALLY get to use the treadmill to take off a few random pounds. But still... it's not FAIR. Six months, my ass.