This isn’t about impact….but it could be a big change for me

This post isn’t about impact. Feel free to step away……

I’ve spoken about it before, but for those who don’t know, after a major DVT in 2008 – and subsequent ones in 2010 and 2016, I have lived with post thrombotic syndrome (PTS) for the last decade. And with its awesome mix of constant aching, leg swelling, heaviness (all exacerbated by walking, standing and sitting and basically normal life) I’ve spent every day of the last 10 years in pain. Some days mild enough to only cause problems when trying to sleep, others so intense it’s left me crying on the floor from the second I wake up. It’s required a constant set of mental calculations to work out the shortest number of steps between any A and B and weeping at the bottom of stairs when lifts are broken. I have a continued and deep guilt having to say no again and again to my kids when they want to go to the park. I’ve joked about being a pirate because it’s easier to do that, but I forget my boys have never known me well. Basically clots aren’t fun and someone clever should ban them.

As I write this I’m waiting in a hospital room (well ‘on site accommodation’ to be pedantic) ahead of surgery tomorrow. If you’re a fan of medical programmes you’ll be interested to know I’m having stents fitted in my veins to try and fix things. If you’re not a fan then you’ll hate the thought of all this anyway and will already have stepped away from the screen.

Having had to ‘use my leg’ today I’m currently collapsed in my room waiting for the ache to go. But for the first time I’m struck by a real sense this this might change. That this could actually be my last day so ‘damaged’. Don’t get me wrong I’m not getting ahead of myself, it might not work. But it could. For the first time since 2010 (ill-fated bypass surgery) I have the prospect of ‘better’ which is a genuinely odd feeling. I might be going home later in the week with a working leg, and that is an incredible possibility.

Updates to come…..

UPDATE at 21.15

Whoop I’m alive, so that’s fairly nice. Don’t know details of surgery success yet as no chance to have a ‘debrief’ but from what I understand all went well. I have no idea what it means for my mobility, and at the mo am aching enough to care more about finding a comfortable position.

But after a day of ‘being a patient’, two things are clear:

1) Patients wait. A LOT. And not just for procedures – for information, for clarity, for contact. It’s immensely easy for patients to feel lost in the system simply through lack of comms.

2) It is impossible to be either dignified or glamorous in surgical stockings and tethered to a compression machine.

More anon….

UPDATE FRIDAY 29th JUNE

I’m home. Whoop! Blood flow sufficient to be discharged, so after a mix of trains and taxis last night I’m back on my sofa. Very achey and feeling very post-op’y but hopeful it’s all worked. Time will tell!! Thanks all for lovely messages :-))