Now a blood clot has formed

Finding the time and the energy to post a steady stream of blogs has proven difficult in the past months.

About six weeks ago I had an ICD surgically placed in a pocket in my chest. It is just under the collar bone on the left side of my body. All seemed to go well: No infection, no seroma, no hematoma. Then, just days ago, my left hand turned red and the red colour spread up my left arm. The hand turned from red to purple and the hand and arm began to swell.

I had a blood clot on the lead from my ICD. The clot could not reach my heart as it was too large to slide between the lead and the venous wall. It was stuck. This protected me from the dangers posed by a blood clot free in my body but it did interfere with my blood flow.

The doctors considered giving me a clot-busting drug but because of my history of micro-bleeds in the brain, they held back. A discussion with the neurology department at the LHSC in London, Ontario, confirmed that I should not be given clot-busting drugs. It was even felt that my daily dose of Aspirin was possibly inadvisable. But as I obviously have a propensity for forming clots, and as the Aspirin has not caused any known adverse reactions in the years that I have been taking it, I have been left on the mild anti-clotting agent.

There seems to be little to do but wait. Possibly the clot will dissolve on its own. Possibly my body will build new veins around the blockage with my body encasing the clot in some scarlike tissue on the wall of the affected vein.

For now I simply must put up with the discolouration and the swelling. I wear a compression bandage for a great part of the day to try and force the gathering fluids back into my body's systems.

Damn!