The Invisible Black Woman

A seeming eternity later—honestly, it was more like 30 minutes, but time seemed to be crawling by as we waited for answers—he was wheeled back to the room. The transporter wheeled him up to his bed so he could get in.

“All right, sir, you have a good one and hope you feel better soon.”

“Thanks.”

I found out the holdup to get his scan wasn’t entirely on the nurse.

“They only had one machine up and running.”

“Really? Only one?”

“Yeah. I got there just in time. There was a line a little after I got wheeled up to the room. The transporter told me they had some machines down.”

“Dang, no wonder… how are you feeling?”

“About the same. Still having a hard time catching my breath, and the pressure on my chest. I feel it less when I’m lying down.”

“Good.”

I was so focused on making sure I didn’t miss anything with him I kinda forgot about my own wellbeing a bit.

“I’m gonna duck out to the lady’s real quick. I know as soon as I step out, that’s when they’ll show up with the results.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Go and come back.”

Sure enough, I got back and there was a team of people around his bedside. The look on hubby’s face told me they’d already told him the results of the scan.

“Another clot, huh?” I said to the one closest to me once I made it back in the room and closed the curtain.

“Nope: multiple.”

I could almost swear it looked like she had a twinkle in her eye, like she’d struck gold.

Later on I would learn that wasn’t at all my imagination.

I managed to maneuver around the people there and make it to his bedside so I could hold his hand.

“And you are?” asked the older gentleman with glasses.

“I’m his wife.”

“Very nice to meet you. My name is Dr. Patel. I’m with interventional radiology. So as you just heard, you have multiple clots. They’re what we call pulmonary embolisms.”

Yep, not our first rodeo or circus, for that matter.

I appreciated he took the time to look at us both while he spoke.

“We can approach treatment one of three ways. I’m going to outline them for you and then we can talk about risks and recommendations on the way forward.”

I did my level best to keep my legs steady while I stood there listening and alternating between caressing and squeezing hubby’s hand.

“One, we can put you on a Heparin drip to break up the clots, like last time. That is one option. He would stay in the hospital and we would monitor him and do some additional scans before discharge.”

“The second option is thrombolysis. That’s where we place multiple small catheters or tubes in several veins and injecting medication to break up the clots. It is minimally invasive, this option.”

“The third option, which is the most involved, is pulmonary artery thrombectomy. In this case, we insert a large catheter into the femoral artery, in your groin area, and we remove the clots by sucking them out. This is the most invasive option, but the relief is pretty immediate. It’s still pretty early, so we can get it done as soon as today. Or, if you want to think about it some more, we can do it in the morning. But, I’ll let you know now that if your condition worsens, we’ll just be back here at midnight to get it done.”

To his point, although it felt like we’d been there forever, it was still morning when we arrived at the hospital and it wasn’t even 4 PM yet.

“It’s a lot to think about, so I understand if you want to take some time to think it over.”

The nurse who’d be scrubbing in with him was also in the room, so she began talking to him about prepping the OR ahead of time so it would be ready either way.

In the meantime, hubby and I were having a silent conversation of our own. It was mostly eye gestures, but we managed to come to a consensus while they chatted.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked him.

“I think we should do the third one. It’s more involved, but I think it’s the right call.”

“Me, too.”

Honestly, I was pretty shocked he wanted to go with the third option. Also, a bit terrified, if I’m being honest. He is definitely the more conservative of the two of us. The fact he wanted to go with the more aggressive option let me know that he knew we were in a Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot situation. There was no time to play it safe. I thought I’d have to talk him into it. His blood pressure was much too high for my liking and his heart rate was in the triple digits with no sign of dropping.

“So, do you guys want to take some time to think about it?”

“No, we’re ready.”

“Okay, what have you decided?”

“The third one.”

“Good. It’s what I was going to recommend. You are young and we want to get you up and moving as soon as possible. I’m not liking your numbers and your heart rate tells me your heart is working too hard. We’d be putting off the inevitable going with the more conservative option.”

Well, that was a relief. We chose right.

“The procedure will take 1-2 hours. We won’t be able to get all of the clots, but we expect to get most of them. We’ll do three passes at the most. That means we’ll go in with the catheter to get the clot and extract it out. We like to keep it to no more than three passes because there is, as one would expect, some blood loss. It can be up to one liter with each pass, so we keep it to three.”

I tried to recall with all my might how many liters a human body held—six, was it?—and how many it could survive without at any given point in time. My brain was too busy stuck on losing up to one liter of blood with each pass and that basic math told me that he was looking at a possible loss of three liters. I hoped and prayed hubby wasn’t doing the same math I was in my head because I was pretty sure that was at least half.

Jesus, give me strength.

“Can we do it tonight?” hubby asked him.

“Absolutely. Let’s get you in there and recovering as soon as possible.”

I was as relieved as I was terrified and anxious. It was the right call, but every surgery has its risks. I remembered all too well going in for what was meant to be a routine same-day surgery and waking up to such excruciating pain they couldn’t get my blood pressure under control. They put me back under within minutes of bringing me out of anesthesia because I was “on my way to coding,” as the doctor so eloquently put it. When I came to, I saw hubby’s worried face and found myself hooked up to way more lines than I expected and admitted to the hospital.

So, while I do my best not to be chicken little, I am firmly in the camp that there is no such thing as minor surgery. Surgery is surgery. Period point blank. And just as I let my mind wander down Horrific Memory Lane, Dr. Patel interrupted.

“So I do want to talk to you about the risks. Although very very minor and in the 2 years I’ve been here, there have been no occurrences, it is possible we may nick an artery or injure and organ. In some rare cases, it is possible you may bleed and we may be unable to—it may be catastrophic.”

Lovely. I know you’ve gotta say things a way, but really? Us being here isn’t catastrophic enough? Sigh.

“But again, these are very rare cases, but we do have to warn you about this.”

We both nodded silently.

“All right. Any questions for me?”

We had none.

“Okay, then I’ll see you in a bit once you get prepped. We’ll get you down there in about half an hour or so.”

“Sounds good.”

Hubby’s catch-all and go-to phrase. Whether it actually sounded good or not, it was his way of saying he was accepting of whatever was currently in front of him.

Me myself? The one who was not the worry wart and always had some peaceful zen word to say when things looked grim? The supposed “church girl” who grew up going to church every Saturday?

Not quite so damn much.