Something's Wrong

It is common knowledge to never Google your symptoms because WebMD will make you think you’re dying.  Well... 

This has been a crazy ride so far.  As it turns out, I’ve been on this ride for a while without ever being asked and I certainly did not sign a permission slip in any way, shape, or form.  But it’s not really up to me.  In hindsight I now see that there were several times over the last two-ish years when my body was trying its best to wave red flags as high as it could.  It knew something was wrong, but to a healthy 30-year-old it was just me 'getting old.'  I’m not a very public person, nor do I enjoy a lot of attention, but I think this crazy, unbelievable story is worth telling.  I'll fast forward through the early symptoms and start right at the good part. 

On February 16, 2019 I married my love, Meredith.  It was an amazing weekend, after which we flew to St. Lucia for a Honeymoon.  We had an incredible time (with zero symptoms) but only a few weeks after the 5-hour flight home, I started to suspect that something was wrong and St. Patrick’s day 2019 was the last time I remember being completely symptom free. 

Though I had been running to lose some weight before the wedding, when my calves started to hurt after a long St. Patrick's day weekend, I figured I strained something while drinking and walking so I began stretching regularly to ease what felt like a constant cramp that was about to kick in.  The nagging calf pain, which usually felt worse in the morning, never really went away throughout, but was overshadowed by the following weekend when the red flags really started to get my attention.

The day after the second crawfish boil I had been to in two weeks I was sitting on the couch watching the Duke-UCF game during March Madness with a belly ache that made me constantly feel like the fullest I’ve ever been.  I mention the basketball game because as I was watching, my apple watch alerted me that my resting heart rate had reached 120bpm.  That was the first of what would be many alerts but since the game was so intense, this was instance was understandable.  However, the stomach ache in addition to a painful neck ache with which I had woken up that morning were enough to make me go to an urgent care clinic.  This being the second time I had seen a doctor within the past month, the nurse practitioner quickly dismissed me with acid reflux, a “good old fashion crick in the neck”, and not a word about my elevated heart rate.  What I did get from them was a prescription for Prilosec and 30 muscle relaxers – I’ll take it. One Flexeril and the daily limit of Tylenol helped me fall asleep, but the next morning the pain in my neck was unbearable.  I couldn’t sit, lay, or stand in a position that was not painful.  So, of course, I decided to go to work and let Meredith drive.  Though I had been to the urgent care clinic the evening prior, I called and made an appointment with my actual doctor for that afternoon.  I was convinced I had a pinched nerve or damaged disk or an aneurism – I knew something was wrong.  At the doctor’s office that afternoon I complained about my symptoms of a bad stomach ache, neck ache, & calf pain.  Considering not being able to move my neck or walk normally, they were most alarmed by my resting heart rate which was again steady at 120bpm.  So much so that they ordered an EKG. When that came back normal, they were convinced the high rate was my “body’s reaction to the various pains.”  So by the time I left the doctors that day I had a normal EKG, clear neck x-ray, perfect blood pressure, and blood work that came back with no issues.  I was given a steroid shot for my neck and clean bill of health otherwise.  The next few weeks were fairly uneventful aside from the residual calf pain, uncontrolled weight loss, crazy high heart rate, and the onset of shortness of breath.  Losing about a pound a day no matter what I ate on my lean diet of Chinese food, Canes, burgers, and dessert every night was nice for a change. With my heart rate so high, for the first time in my life I had what skinny people call a metabolism.  What wasn’t so nice were the high heart rates after any activity – or no activity – that stopped me in my tracks.  The highest recorded resting heart rate was 168bpm while watching Game of Thrones.  But even during that, something was wrong. The final red flag that broke the metaphorical camel’s back started on April 8, 2019.  I woke up that morning with a dry cough that was insatiable.  Over the course of 4 days the cough got progressively worse, along with the heart rate and shortness of breath, until I began to cough up blood.  If you’ve never coughed up blood, like me up until that moment, (and I hope you never do) it’s a very sobering moment that screams “Something’s wrong!” So, go ahead, put my symptoms into Google like Meredith did and see what you get: Calf pain, high heart rate, coughing up blood.  Now google the results.  For her, it was enough evidence to warrant a visit to the emergency room.  For me, I wanted to be extra sure. So we called a telehealth doctor who said to go see a real doctor immediately.  The real doctor at urgent care then said to go to the emergency room immediately. The emergency room, after a normal EKG, perfect blood pressure, clear chest x-ray, good blood and urine tests, said “You’re fine.” We said “No. Something is wrong.”  I’m not by any means a hypochondriac but come on!  The doctor agreed to do a CT Scan and quickly confirmed I had a saddle embolism (emboli?).  For the non-medical people like us, that just means multiple blood clots in both lungs.  So, I was given my first blood thinner shot and was immediately admitted to Baton Rouge General.  At this point I was actually somewhat relieved that they finally found something wrong.  I had only been saying it for a month.  Though they now knew what was making me cough up blood, it was clear that this diagnosis didn’t really make any sense to the doctors.  Of course, since we had been on a 5-hour flight just two months prior, that was the best logical reason for a 32-year-old with great blood pressure and normal EKG to have a pulmonary embolism. By the time I was assigned my first bed, it was approaching midnight and as I sat in a room that we now believe to be an overfill of the ICU, this story gets better…