Another Round of Blood Clots

In continuing with my blog titled "Bumps in the Road," I was surprised to find out that you can develop blood clots while on Coumadin.  Every week, I had to go in to the lab and get a test performed called INR to see where my Coumadin level was at.  Ideally we wanted it between 2-3 and it was extremely hard achieving this.  Anything under meant that my blood was too thick and anything above meant that my blood was too thin.  Diet is another one of those things that affects the Coumadin level.  After chemo #5, I had a few horrible episodes of loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.  Needless to say, my Coumadin level was out of whack and I developed a blood clot on my right side of neck and right arm.  The pain in my neck was horrible and I couldn't move my head around.  After a few days, the pain in my neck went away but it remained in my right arm and it got to the point where I needed help dressing myself as I couldn't move my arm around.  I had to keep my arm close to my body, almost as if it was being held in place by an invisible sling.  Finally by Thursday, June 14th, I had had enough of the arm pain.  I emailed my oncologist and expressed to her my concerns that the morphine was not helping with the pain and I was wondering what other options we had for treating this blood clot.  She emailed me back shortly and told me that if I was up to it, I could go back on Lovenox.  Lovenox is another blood thinner that I would inject myself with nightly.  When I was first diagnosed with blood clots in my lungs back in April, I was placed on both Lovenox and Coumadin.  I was only on the shots for 4 days before I was taken off of them and then just exclusively used Coumadin.  I told my oncologist to go ahead and switch me back to Lovenox and I went by Kaiser in South San Francisco that afternoon to go pick up my new medication.  There's just something weird about injecting myself that makes my tummy fill with butterflies.  But compared to the pain that I was in, I was willing to try anything.  My sister and her boyfriend accompanied me to the pharmacy and I was so shocked to see what the retail value of Lovenox is without insurance.  I cannot thank the Lord enough for my $10 copay!

The retail price of one months' supply of Lovenox.

That evening, I prepped my tummy for my shot by swiping an area around my navel with an alcohol pad. I asked my sister to help me out by doing the injection for me.  There's really nothing to it.  And I greatly appreciated her helping me.  This was one less thing that I had to worry about.  All the pain I've gone through.  All the nausea.  All the vomiting.  All the needle sticks.  All the infusions.  I needed a break.  This was one last thing that my brain didn't have to freak out about...that I had to stick myself with needles from here on out.  My sister squirmed a little, but I told her to just stab me with the needle and within 60 seconds, we were done.  She subsequent days, my friend Taylor stopped by and helped me with my injections.  And I couldn't thank him enough for doing that for me.  Taylor has been a good friend of mine for about 6 years now.  We used to work together and when I transferred out of that office, we kept in touch.  It's great to know that I have my circle of friends who are willing to help me out with these things that freak me out.  Cancer has been a journey that I have had to physically endure and getting help with these shots is just one less thing I have to worry about.

By the time I woke up Saturday morning (just 2 days after starting Lovenox shots), I noticed that I started to have a great range of motion in my right arm.  A couple of days ago, it was completely useless.  I couldn't lift it up above my head without feeling extreme pain.  I couldn't extend my arm out to open the faucet of water.  But now, my arm was doing a happy dance.  I was so thrilled that Lovenox was working.  I still did have quite a bit of swelling in my right arm but I was just grateful that my range of motion was back and that the pain was now minimal.

Swollen right arm due to blood clot.

Another view of my swollen right arm due to blood clot.

 It's now been one week since I've been on Lovenox and the pain in my right arm is gone.  It is 100% now fully functional and there is absolutely no swelling.  My right clavicle is now starting to show and the frightful green look of my veins showing on my chest has gone down. Blood clots are not fun.  They are so painful.  And I'm just hoping that now we are on the right track of preventing them.  While it may have been very easy to swallow a pill (Coumadin) every night, it was extremely high maintenance to get my blood level right and I was getting tired of going to the lab 1-2 times a week just to check to see where I was at.  I'm so glad I don't have to put myself through that again!  For now, I'm enjoying the help I'm getting from my sister who is staying with me for a few days and giving me my shots.  I know that eventually I'll have to muster up the courage to do them myself but for now, I'm sitting back and relaxing.