Road trip coming up!!

Life is like sailing.  You can use any wind to go in any direction.  -- unknown

This will just be a brief update.  Hah!  Let’s see if I can pull that off!  I’m not sure I know how to be brief….LOL! 

As most of you know by now, I had the repeat D-Dimer test…..in the hopes that the first one was a false positive.  Unfortunately, the second one came back positive, too, albeit slightly better than the first (1.17 as opposed to 1.2; negligible difference really).  Thank you all so much for thinking all those positive thoughts and singing the 0.3 mantras for me!  It was a valiant effort, and I sure do appreciate it.  I had so many questions for Dr. Sprawls about this whole thing, so I called his office on Monday morning (8/20) and was able to get in to see him the next morning.  And I pounded him with questions.  Too many details to go into here.  I asked him how high D-Dimer results could go, and he said 15-20, so I concluded (and he concurred) that 1.17 wasn’t all that bad (but he did point out that it's almost 3 times the upper limit of normal).  My most important question was whether or not I could still make the upcoming road trip (and flights) with Nancy, which involves 6 days in the car and 3 days in airports/airplanes.  He said it was okay, which is all I wanted to hear!!  I think I pretty much forgot everything else he said after that because my mind was already “…..on the road again….”  He did say I need to take precautions – we MUST get out and walk around every couple of hours.  Elevating my leg and/or flexing it while sitting would help.  Ice might help when possible.  Wear compression stockings (I have one for each leg and one for my left arm; the arm one is due to the possibility of lymphedema caused by flying).  Oh, the other great news was that I don’t have to do the Lovenox.  He strongly encouraged it, but I opted not to do it, and he was okay with it.  I DO have to do the Coumadin for 6 more months (minimum), which I’m not happy about, and I’ll have to have weekly INR checks to make sure the Coumadin dosage is correct.  I don’t even have to do the prophylactic Lovenox before the long days in the car or planes because I will be sufficiently anticoagulated from the Coumadin by the time we start our trip (9/20).  Oh, and I DO have to wear a helmet when bike riding now (ugh!) due to the risk of a bleeding head injury if I crashed and burned while on Coumadin. 

I got my temporary crown on tooth #4 last week.  And I will start the Zometa infusions on Friday of this week.  It turns out I don’t have to wait until all of the dental work is done; I just had to get the extractions out of the way. 

Getting drenched with the outer bands of Tropical Storm Isaac at the moment!  Nasty weather, but at least the storm is staying far to the west of us.

Okay, I’m going to stick to my words and be brief (relatively).  That’s about it for now, folks.  As always, thank you all SO VERY MUCH for all your love and support!! 

Sing it Willie Nelson……

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again……