I wrote last week that vascular surgery was a possibility for me and I found out on Friday that I definitely will be going under the knife. Of course, it’s not going to be a simple surgery that he had hoped to do in his office. Naturally that wouldn’t be the case for me.
When the doctor first looked at my varicose veins on my legs, he was pretty confident that I would have a quick, almost painless procedure that he would do right in his office. He wanted me to have an ultrasound of my right leg, however, to determine whether there were any blood clots or any other issues going on.
I was rather impressed with the man who did the ultrasound. Every other ultrasound that I have ever had the technician never tells me anything. This guy told me everything that he was doing while he was doing it and he explained everything he saw on the screen.
Almost immediately after starting the ultrasound at my upper thigh, the technician started noticing blood clots in the superficial veins (not deep vein thrombosis). The technician mentioned something about phlebitis also, which is inflammation in the veins, but he said it’s not a serious problem. These blood clots continued down my leg into below my knee where the majority of my varicose veins begin. From what I understood, the varicose veins are due to blood that has built up because the blood can’t return properly due to the clots. The technician said this is not a “typical” or “easy” fix. My first thought was, “Wonderful. Why can’t I ever have anything that is easy?”
When the doctor came back into the room to see me he told me that they could fix the problem and alleviate the pain but it won’t be as easy as his in office procedure. I will have to go to the hospital, be knocked out with anesthesia and he will have to go in through my groin, fix the problem in there and then go below the calf and fix the veins there. He said that normally someone with this procedure has to be off of work for at least a week but due to my medical history, I will have to be off for at least two weeks.
I agreed to have the procedure done despite all of this because I want pain relief. I always thought the pain in my legs was due to Fibromyalgia. Now that I know it is due to these blood clots, phlebitis and varicose veins, I am eager to have the procedure done. I have been in so much pain for so long, I am looking forward to some relief. I know I will hurt worse for a while but it is worth it if I have long term pain relief. It’s the chronic, agonizing, never-ending pain that is harder to deal with than the initial pain after an operation.
I’m scheduled for surgery on March 11th, I have to complete my blood work yet before then. I will update more on this once the surgery is over.
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