Self pitying whine... I guess I'll be doing du's...

[roadie gal]

I've been doing tris for the past 6 years. I started doing them after I got a pacemaker. I don't do more than 2 a year, but I do enjoy it. I love the training.

Well... Tuesday afternoon while I was getting ready for work I noticed that the veins on my neck, chest and arm on the left side, where the pacer is, were swollen. I felt fine otherwise. Yesterday I called my cardiologist. To make a long story short, after spending 5 hours at the hospital getting a chest xray, ultrasound and a venogram, I have a large, obstructing clot in my subclavian vein and internal jugular vein. These are the large veins that drain directly into the heart. The pacemaker wires go through the subclavian.

The only thing we can think of that caused this was the swimming. It's not definite, but we can't think of any other reason. The cardiologist thinks the arm motion from the swim stroke irritated the lining of the vein and caused the clot. A clot like this 6 years out is really unusual. At least they don't usually embolize to the lungs... usually.

So now I'm going to be on coumadin, an anticoagulant for at least 6 months and maybe the rest of my life. I can't swim. At least until we get the coumadin dialed in I can only ride the bike on the trainer and run on the treadmill.

I'm really depressed. Coumadin is in the top 5 of the list of meds that I never wanted to be on. It's a life changing drug. You have to monitor it to make sure you aren't over-anticoagulated. You have to watch your intake of certain vegetables because they can affect the drug. Any small contusion can turn into a big deal. feh

I'll learn to live with it and it'll become second nature. I know this. But right now it's overwhelming.