Thursday morning started out really well. I was resting, getting up to walk periodically, and even doing some work from home. I’d even gotten my incentive spirometer up to 1500! This made me cough quite a bit, though, but I figured that was a good sign that I was using more of my lungs and getting back to normal at a steady pace.
After lunch, I sat down to watch some Game of Thrones and felt a good coughing fit come on. The coughs were productive. Like when you’re sick and have mucous that needs to come up. There was definitely something that needed to come up because it wasn’t just a quick cough and then done. I was also starting to taste metallic with each cough. Oh great. Then I coughed up a good sized piece of bloody mucous. It wasn’t like blood streaked mucous, the entire damn thing was saturated with blood. Because I had been tasting metallic, I knew I needed to get a look at what was coming up, so I coughed it out into my hand, took a picture in case the doctor needed to see, and then went to the bathroom for a tissue.
I walked in and told John, “Now don’t freak out, it’s probably normal, but I just coughed up blood”. He immediately responds, “You’re going to call in to make sure, right?” Of course. So, I called the nurse line at the hospital, explained the situation, and they asked us to come in. Our paperwork had also mentioned going in if I started coughing up blood.
I figured it was either from the damage to my lungs, or, worst case, I started bleeding somewhere, and we needed to get it checked out. We drove to the ER. When we got there, they put me in the same room as I was in on Monday. I thought that was kind of funny. At least, I was in good spirits this time. The nurse came in, asked about everything, hooked me up to an IV and we waited for the doc.
The doc came in and based on the fact that I hadn’t continued coughing up blood, didn’t seem concerned. Her immediate thought was that my INR had increased too much and that I was bleeding too easily and my meds would have to be changed. They had drawn blood and said it would take an hour to get the results and just to sit tight.
The wait was long, a little over an hour. I joked with John that maybe they’d give me a punch card for all these visits. We discussed Christmas gifts while we were waiting. Finally, the results came back and my INR had hardly changed since I left the hospital. This meant no change in meds, and that I’d probably have to be on the Lovenox for a lot longer than expected. Fun. She gave me the information I needed to know for when to come back in. I definitely didn’t want to have to run to the ER for every blood tinged piece of mucous I coughed up. I feel confident now that we can make those decisions when we have to.
We had to stop at Target for more pillows on the way home. John’s Mom had picked up the kids for us. We stopped at home to grab my meds and do my shot and then went to their house for dinner and to grab the kiddos. I even had a very small glass of wine.
Although I woke up a bit tired this morning I’m looking forward to trying again for another day of recovery and some semblance of normalcy.
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