Sunday 15th January 2023
My breathlessness problem has progressed over a long period, not too debilitating and just self diagnosed as lack of fitness. Until 29th September 2022 I was doing regular walks over hilly terrain of 6/8miles with almost no problem but from then on combined with severe back pain breathlessness seemed to accelerate to the point where I was out of breath just going out to my garage.
Various appointments and comings and goings ensued (during which the back pain vanished) until last Wednesday morning , 11th January. My son William was concerned about my breathlessness and my ill looking appearance and insisted on phoning my GP's surgery despite the fact that I had an appointment with my dedicated GP for 25th January owing to her being on holiday. My son got an immediate appointment with another GP in the practice at 11:00 am. He seemed to understand my problem more than others have done and suspected the possibility of a blood clot. He pushed the surgery to get me a blood appointment at 3:00 pm on the Friday. I understood that one of the samples would test for an indication of a blood clot.
At 8:00pm that same Friday evening I had a telephone call from the blood analysing place in Cumbria, bearing in mind the sample had only been taken at 3:00pm that afternoon at my surgery. I was told that a positive indication of possible clot was showing, and could I go immediately to Kendal Hospital. My son W and daughter J drove me there and I saw another GP who also agreed about the possibility of a clot. He phoned Lancaster hospital and made arrangements for an urgent admission. We drove to Lancaster and walked straight into A and E without being involved with any queues and I was seen and eventually allocated a bed on the Acute Surgical Ward at bout 11:00 pm. The next morning I had a CT scan and had to wait overnight until this morning (Sunday) for the results. I saw the registrar with a full explanation and medication which I am assured will gradually clear the clot over a period of weeks and that I must continue to take the Apixaban daily, and ad infinitum.
I don't really want to instigate a debate on the details of cardiac/pulmonary illness. I just wanted to document the rapid service I eventually received and also wondered why, if there is a blood test that indicates the possibility of blood clot that was not applied for during that period from 29th September last year during which two other blood samples were taken and analysed?
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Just watched the Masters snooker final. Trump made a sudden unexpected bodily movement to take his next shot - the commentator, "that nearly gave the cameraman whiplash..."
AlanR... Well done your son. Pleased to hear of your success with the NHS. Hopefully your breathlessness will soon be gone.
ReplyDeleteAlan R - Yes, I am grateful to him for that. I hope you and Sheila are bearing up.
ReplyDeletei think i alluded to a circulation issue when we met but didn't want to pursue it , not being a medic.: I too wonder why it was not picked up much earlier with the various tests (and X-rays?) you had - the answer always seems to be the same - if you don't fit the investigators' remit, there is nothing untoward the matter - or to be seen. 'They' will soon be driven to use a different x-ray wavelength which can detect blood abnormalities, as shown by the negative tests on CV19 patients who then had major clotting incidents in deep lung tissue - one problem is that the usual X-rays are cheap but nuclear resonance and radioactive tracer emission scans are expensive.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you are not on rat poison nor what i describe as cloppidoggrel - and wish you the best and a speedy return to normal - this sunny weather must really bring on your cabin fever !
Glad to hear you finally have a medical explanation for the breathlessness and hope you'll soon be able to confirm that you're able to breathe easier.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy the things Snooker commentators come out with, from witty to plain ridiculous (well, they do have a lot of time to fill!). When I was at university a friend elsewhere in the country and I used to write to each other daily, and if there was snooker on TV at the time (eeeh, black and white in my case - but at least I had a TV) the envelopes would be covered in quotes of things that had caught our ears from the commentators. Happy days!
gimmer - thanks for the science lesson (catching up where Mr. Price never got started with me.)
ReplyDeleteWhat about you giving us a dummie's guide to how nuclear resonance and radioactive tracer emission scans work?
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Gayle - I too followed snooker from the early days. Way back I lived in Sedgefield (more recentlyTony Blair country.) One bad winter vehicles were stranded in the snow amongst them a fresh faced ginger haired youth called Steve Davis. Some members of our Round Table gave those stranded a bed for the night and one member opened up for an informal party in the evening. As usual for me we ended up in a splinter group in the kitchen chatting to Steve who was more or less unknown outside his snooker milieu.
Frequent use of adjectives in place of adverbs prevails with many snooker commentators "He hit that good." But it all adds to the charm and I am as addicted now as I was back in those Teesside days.
Pleased to hear you have a diagnosis and medication, Conrad. Do take care. Hope to visit you again soon, and certainly on 10 Feb if you are around.
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