"It's good that we caught it because a second one could have killed you."

a typical tuesday with a side of double pulmonary embolisms

Hi, it’s me, and I’m writing to you from Bryan’s hospital room on Wednesday afternoon. My planned newsletter for today is scrapped so I can bring you this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants update.

He’s fine, I’ll start with that. 

Tuesday night in the tiny ER room around 9:30pm, watching The Wire while waiting to be admitted to the hospital. He doesn’t look close to death here, but that oxygen tube was at maximum air flow.

Last night he was… less fine. 

A couple weeks ago, Bryan started experiencing shortness of breath. The oncologist¹ ordered an x-ray, which showed some fuzziness in Bryan’s lower lung, so antibiotics were prescribed for possible pneumonia. When the shortness of breath didn’t clear up after the round of antibiotics ended, the oncologist ordered an “urgent CT scan in case this is more of an infection or a blood clot.”

The CT scan revealed significant pulmonary embolisms (blood clots) in the upper part of both lungs, which was severe enough that they arranged for him to be transported by ambulance to the emergency room at the cancer center’s partner hospital. 

Five or six hours after arriving at the ER, and eight or nine hours after the CT scan, he was finally admitted to the hospital – this was Tuesday night. He’ll come home tomorrow, Thursday, if his vitals continue to trend positive.

It’s been a long, scary day. Not to be dramatic, but I think this was a he-could-have-died type thing. He’s stabilized now, taking anti-coagulation drugs, and all the tests are looking good. 

Still, every time I leave the room, I kiss him and say, “Try not to die before I get back.”

That’s all for now. I’ll update in more detail over the weekend on things like treatment drugs, potential causes, and what I’ve learned about blood clots.

Until next time,

 jen

1. For context and to catch up some of my newer readers, Bryan has been getting chemo for colon cancer since May of this year. If you’re interested, the backstory is HERE.