On September 6, 2012, my life changed forever. I found myself laying on a gurney at the United Hospital Center in Bridgeport, West Virginia with a nurse telling me that I had a life threatening condition. As the ceiling tiles rushed by on my way to ICU, my life seemed to be slipping away. My legs were shaking and thoughts were racing through my head. "Is this it?", "Will I see my granddaughters again?", "Is my wife going to be OK?" "Will I be able to see my daughter and son again?" I couldn't believe that this crisis came on me so quickly.
The words 'blood clot' and 'embolism' were seared in my head and I tried to wrap my mind around the vague descriptions provided in snippets by the emergency room doctor. "What do you mean it is in both of my lungs?" "Where did it come from?" "How do you fix this thing?" Needless to say, it was difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to figure out what was going to be happening in the next few days. At 61, I had never spent a night in the hospital and never had a serious medical condition. I would get weak kneed at the site of blood and winced each time I had blood drawn or received a flu shot.
"Why am I not feeling bad?" I couldn't believe that I am laying on a bed in the Intensive Care Unit and I didn't feel any different than I had for the past month or two. Sure, I was getting short of breath, but I thought that it was the result of too many donuts and not enough exercise. When the pulmonary doctor came in to examine me, I jokingly asked if he had accurately read the CAT Scan. He did not find this funny and assured me that I had a large pulmonary embolism that was lodged between both lungs.
As I laid in bed attached to a gaggle of wires and tubes, the hours ticked away and I couldn't believe that my wonderful life was taking a detour that I did not anticipate less than twelve hours before. I felt like an actor in a play that would end with a curtain falling and me getting out of bed and going home. Unfortunately this was not the case.
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