Six days ago, last Saturday, I had a miraculous healing. My friends here have been very supportive, so I want to tell a short version of the story.
I had surgery on October 2nd, my 59th birthday, for a major abdominal hernia repair. Two surgeons. Five hours. 30 inches of incisions.
Immediately got pneumonia. Great suffering in the hospital. Sent home on Oct. 7th, still with pneumonia and needing oxygen.
The pneumonia cleared but then I was diagnosed with a partially collapsed lung. Trying my hardest to fight to get better, but little progress.
Last week, my health fell apart. I couldn't walk 40 feet, even with oxygen tank, without pulse going to 150+, gasping breath, heaving chest. Emergency!
Last Wednesday, emergency CT scan revealed not one but something like ONE HUNDRED blood clots in my lungs, including serious blockage of both main pulmonary arteries (if either of those is occluded, it means instant death with no possible treatment).
I thought I was dead. I did my best to make peace in all directions.
To the ICU by ambulance at 1 a.m. last early Thursday morning. Leaving my poor wife as the ambulance left!
I've been treated over the last week by at least 16 doctors. They all said they'd never seen so many lung clots. It's a genuine medical mystery--both the extent of the clot burden and the incredible speed of my apparent recovery. One doctor, the director of all of the ICUs at the hospital (Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, the 2nd largest hospital in the state after Johns Hopkins) said I looked "much better than advertised"--since my CT scan suggested a person right about to die.
There is no way to reduce blood clots, except an emergency method for people very close to death, with extreme risks. Although my CT scan showed near-death from clots, I still had good blood pressure, so they did nothing about the clots. Just put me on blood thinners to prevent future clots, and gave me a painful operation to install a "filter" device in the main vein (the IVC) right below the heart to catch any more clots from the big clot they discovered in one of my legs. (They crammed this in from the jugular vein in my neck, very painful.)
Everybody thought it would be MONTHS before the main clots were dissolved by my own immune system!
But something happened last Saturday. I had about 100 people praying for me, so I think it was a miracle.
My pulse had been running hot for at least two weeks, baseline 110+, often jumping to over 150 with very minor exertion. That, obviously, is a recipe for heart failure. (Normal pulse is 60 to 100, with all kinds of exceptions.)
Suddenly last Saturday everything went to normal. Consistently very high oxygen levels, whatever I was doing. Consistently low and normal pulse (70s), whatever I was doing. It has been like that ever since, and they quickly discharged me from 100 wires and tubes in ICU to home!
I'm going to need follow-up and treatment for the rest of my life. And, painfully, I probably will need to give up alcohol for the rest of my life because of the Coumadin (warfarin) blood thinner.
But I'm ALIVE! And feeling GREAT, although weak from the surgery and pneumonia and so much inaction. I got into work the last two days. I don't really need the oxygen anymore, but my internist wants me to keep it up for awhile to help my heart, which showed some damage from the extra work needed to push against all of the clots for several weeks. I have conflicting opinions on whether that kind of damage is permanent.
Yesterday I reread all of the inscriptions on the DKos quilt that I was given. Thanks so much again.
I really do think I just received a miraculous healing. I mentioned this to my primary care physician yesterday, who is a wonderful person. I believe she saved my life by recognizing, last week, that I showed signs of pulmonary embolism and needed immediate emergency attention. She said she was also a religious person and it might well have been a miracle; but it also could be that my body was very unusually fast in dissolving the main clots.
I'll take it either way!