dead by 60 thats the verdict

so I went to sydney to see my dear friend Kathryn who is the top in her field of Vascular Radiography and is in buisness with 2 of the best vascular surgeons in Australia. She scanned both my legs looking for veins that are not working properly (especially on the left where the DVT was) but also to see why my right foot keeps swelling as well. Also to get some advice from Dr Stevens who is one of her buisness partners and a brilliant and most respected vascular surgeon.

So Kathryn scans me and first surprise is she finds the remains of many clots in BOTH legs both below and above the knee. Now the clot (singular) in the left leg I knew about, so I was absolutely gob smacked when she said there were remenants of several clots in several veins in my left leg, and yes one of my veins was badly compromised, but also old clots in my upper thigh.

I almost fell over when she found old clots in my healthy right leg as well both in my calf and my thigh so that was the first surprise and at that moment I was glad to be on warfarin.

Then Dr stevens came in. He is a lovely lovely man, very gruff and rough around the edges, calls it as he sees it, but nice all the same, I like him a lot. He walked in and said hello there, my you are a big girl, big girls don't cry you know, to which I replied, its a myth this big girl cries a lot. :-).

Kath told him about the scan then him and I had a chat.
He basically told me I am going to be dead by 60 if certain things don;t happen. He told me I have some fairly serious health issues all exacibated by my weight, he also told me I need to loose at the very least 35 kilos and its not something I will be able to do on my own becasue of the mecications I am on, becasue of my metabalisim being mucked up by my graves disease and subsiquent radiation treatment, and becasue exercise is something that is going to be almost impossible becasue of my ankle and back. He said I would be able to loose about 10-15 kilos through diet and exercise but my body would more than likely not let me loose any more than that.

He also told me that I need to have my aneurysum coiled as I am never to come off warfarin and it is dangerous to leave while I am on warfarin. He said that becasue of the blood flow problems to my left foot it is only a matter of time before a ulcer forms and once that happens I am screwed, as it will never heal, and it will be just like the open weeping sores the very elderly get for the exact same reason.

He told me if I was his patient he would one get me lap banded and once I had dropped 35 kilo's, would coil the aneurysum and fix my ankle, he thinks just by doing these things my life expectancy will increase by 20 years..

So I can;t even begin to describe how I felt as I was hearing these words. Failure, worthless, guilty, stupid, devistated. I sat there listening wishing I could just die right there and then. He shook my hand, I thanked him for his time, and his advice and he left. Kathryn and I went back to her office and she started looking up lapband surgery while I sat there wishing I was anywhere else but there and feeling totally stupid.

Later Kath and I talked about everything and I cried and cried and cried. I will not do lapband surgery where the hell are we supposed to find that sort of money. I told DH this morning again bawling my eyes out.
I will try and do the weight loss myself, but there is so much more to it than just loosing weight, so many more demons to overcome.

So on thursday I am off to my GP armed with a report from Dr Stevens, and I will discuss with her further what he had to say.

Dr Stevens said if I ever have to have surgery no matter how small I will have to have the cava filter re inserted, He said that with the evidence showing I have had multipal clots in the past I am going to be a difficult patient, every doctors worst nightmare. :(