Thursday...July 24th...2008

Just when things were getting "boring" on the BLOG, Linda adds excitement!

Yesterday, Linda awakened with a sore shoulder...she put heat on it...then ice..then some pain meds....then said it was under the shoulder blade and radiating in different directions...and so painful she needed help. Of course, my mind and body went to an immediate "old" place it had not gone to in a while ( not a comfortable feeling).

So off to the Bend Memorial Clinic we went.......

After a long wait, we were seen by a physician who immediate Linda recognized as the one who had originally diagnosed her lung problem as maybe pneumonia...he was a bit embarrassed until Linda reassured him that this had been an initial diagnosis and that if he had done the followup the cancer would have been found by him...after looking over his notes at the time, he agreed..but still a bit edgy...
.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the diagnosis of the pain was either a severe muscle strain in the upper back (to which Linda could not attribute to any specific cause) or PE (pulmonary embolism)..or also called a blood clot in the lung. The doctor said Linda was in the "high risk" category for this because of the lung cancer.......and he did not want to take the chance of sending her home without further testing as she may go home..go to sleep..and not wake up because of the PE....he did not want to be the doctor who "blew it" twice (light humor). So a scan was ordered to see if there was a clot.

In the meantime we had dinner guests showing up at home and time was "flying".....so we canceled that.

Was the end of the story a simple scan and then we went home......nope....Miss Linda decided to make it tough on everyone including herself. They couldn't get the needle in the vein to start the "contrasting material" in, which was needed for the scan. 6 times they tried! No luck! And she was miserable.

So off to the hospital emergency room we were sent for their specialists to do the insertion and scan (do you spell "m-o-n-e-y-?)

.

And I forgot to mention that Linda started into shock due to the number of needle insertion attempts (we've done that...seen that.... before)...which caused a scramble of personnel.

In the hospital emergency room, we met "One Stick Tom"......the emergency room nurse..."No problem"..... said he....and he was right...the insertion was made on the first try.....mind you, we have now been in one or more medical facilities for over 7 hours. We were scheduled for an activity in Portland today...cancelled that.

Finally after a total of 8 and a half hours, the scan was completed...no clot....big pain meds administered (regardless of no clot, the upper inner part of the back area still hurt her badly).....and a "relieved everybody"...including us.

Off to home....some dinner close to midnight....Linda's gotten up a couple of times for more meds....and I've awakened restless....tired but glad everything has worked out...

As Linda says.....she only did it for the BLOG as things were getting boring...

I'm sure we are all glad she is "OK" and were quickly reminded about how things can turn so quickly....and a reminder that being active as Linda is.... muscle pulls, etc are part of "normal life"......

End of story...no pictures this time...camera was at home....