Ignoring the Symptoms of Pulmonary Embolism

After struggling with an ankle injury for over 6 months, one of my doctors finally did an MRI, which showed extensive damage in my ankle and needed surgery. I was on aspirin for 30 days post-procedure to prevent any clots from forming in my leg, but I was able to stop those around the same time I went back to work.

Around the 6 week mark after having surgery I began experiencing severe shortness of breath and some calf pain, both of which I attributed to other causes—asthma and de-conditioning and muscle tightness/soreness from physical therapy.

Turns out I had a pulmonary embolism

My shortness of breath slowly got worse over about a week. I could go shorter and shorter distances before I had to stop and catch my breath. Looking back on it, it should have been pretty obvious what the problem was, but I didn’t really know what a pulmonary embolism (PE) was, or how it formed, and had the misconception that it only happened to “old people”.

I had asked my physical therapist about my calf pain, and after consulting with one of her colleagues and doing a quick assessment, they both concluded the same thing I did.

I have pretty vivid memories of the day before I ended up in the ICU

I had started to get some palpitations, which wasn’t all that uncommon for me, except they were pretty consistent and bothersome throughout the afternoon. I had called and left a message for my cardiologist and he returned my call while I was driving home from work that afternoon. I gave him a brief overview of what was going on and he recommended that I turn around and head to the emergency room.

No surprise, I declined his offer because I knew it would be expensive and I still didn’t understand the gravity of the situation at hand. We talked it through and he offered to order an ultrasound for me to do sometime the next day, and we would go from there.

Moving around was difficult

When I got back to my apartment, it was a challenge to get up the stairs and unlock the door. I made it up the stairs okay but had to take a breather before I walked from the top of the steps to my door and unlocked it to get in. The next morning I knew something was up, but I still hadn’t put all of the pieces together. I was so out of breath that I was using my pulse ox to measure my oxygen level and heart rate.

My heart rate was over 100 (again, not that unusual for me, except that it was staying over 100) and my oxygen was a little low, maybe 94-96%, but nothing extreme.

I went to work as usual

I was keeping an eye on my phone for when my cardiologist called to get me in for an ultrasound, but morning came and went and my phone never rang. My symptoms were getting worse (shortness of breath, calf pain, fast heart rate, and palpitations) and I finally decided I should go to the ER to get checked out.

I made a pit stop at the restroom before heading to the elevator, but I barely made it out of the bathroom door before I had nothing left in me to get to the elevator. One of the guys in my office had come out to use the restroom and I asked him to get my boss. At this point, I knew something was wrong, but I still didn’t know quite how wrong things were.

My boss rushed out into the hallway and I told her what was going on. She knew I wasn’t feeling good, but I hadn’t divulged any of the symptoms I was having until then. She immediately called 911 and I was whisked away to the ER in an ambulance.