Home Pt/inr Testing Kit For Coumadin Therapy After Dvt

[jsd2 39]

God bless insurance out of pocket maximums. I know many of you are self pay and I think about all the years I was without any health insurance and I know I could never have been as strong or dedicated as you and save the money to pay for any of this on my own, it shames me to know how much has been spent on my surgery and post-op care already. My out of pocket was supposed to be around $12-1500.00 for food and miscellaneous fees and tests that weren't covered. So far I've cleared my flex spending account of $3500.00 and pulled another grand from my 401k just to cover the meds and all the food and supplements i've tried.

A complication with my last PICC line left me with several vericose veins in my upper arm and clusters of blood clots, i'm on Coumadin/Warfarin but not therapeutic still so I go daily to the lab for them to draw a blue top tube which holds around 10-20ccs of my blood, not even an ounce but more than my body can give them. Each day I slink into the lab, sweatshirt on, infant heel warmers strapped to my arms to keep them warm and the blood flowing for the next attempted blood draw. I look like a freak, an addict, a victim, my left arm is still swollen from the blood clots and you can see black and deep blue veins gnarled along it from my elbow to my shoulder. My left arm is a kaleidiscope, a rainbow of colrs from yellow to green, purple, brown, red. Bumps on my forearm indicate perforated veins and subque blood collecting and pooling. A couple sites look infected, raised and red, itchy and sore. I have scar tissue build up in my anti-cubital from 3 PICC lines and too many blown IVs to count. I've had blood taken from neck, shoulder, fingers, hands, groin, feet, IVs placed in such bizarre areas that each nurse kind of looks at me like "how long have you been an IV drug user?" and I chuckle to myself when I think about it.

I've found a lab tech who knows me now, I don't have to tell her my story every day when I come in, she says "oh Jennifer, I see your name and I knew I should have passed it up for the next person!" and we laugh, only I just try to smile and make a kind of grunting noise and she feigns a smile and pretends to laugh like its a joke but we both know its not. The sweet spot is my wrist now, yesterday she blew the deep one on my forearm, its swollen and rock hard, venous phlebitis they call it- an infection or inflamation of your vein, I hate venous-phlebitis but I love to say it, try it....venous-phlebitis. So my wrist is still sore from yesterday but its warm from the precious little infant heel warmers, the blood is flowing temporarily to the right place, a surface vein that usually gives close to enough to fill the damn blue top tube, she sticks me with the butterfly and theres blood return but not for long, it clots off. She tries again at my thumb now and I want to hit her, she says she knows it hurts but shes a liar, if she knew she would never poke another person there on their thumb, she grazes the cartilage and the bone, I sit there but the whole time i'm thinking what she would do if I just opened my mouth and started screaming at the top of my lungs, there are other patients walking in and out, a half dozen lab techs, nurses, I could just scream, louder and louder, keep my face straight and just scream, then she would know how bad it hurts, they all would know, and none of them would do that again, no one would allow them to stick them on their thumb, its inhumane and just mean.

My daughter brings me home, I slump back into bed, check my phone- its always on vibrate now, no one calls me but doctors and I don't want to talk to them. I have a voicemail from my doctors office- go up 2 more on Coumadin, great, thanks. There's another call from someone at Phillips but she talks fast leaves an 800 number and extension and I wait to call her back. I try to sleep but toss and turn and realize she called from Phillips! Phillips something about cardiology and home monitoring, Phillips who makes the home PT/INR tester that would save me the daily misery of lab trips, the pain of the blood draws and the dreaded venous-phlebitis. I bolt up and call her immediately. My tester is approved, it's around $2000 but insurance will buy me one! I have to buy the strips which are around $100 every 3 months but they're sending it to me, free! It's coming FedEx ground, If i'm lucky I can keep this site on my thumb going until Tuesday!

Please share your DVT, Coumadin, PICC line or other complication stories with me. :-)

[lessofmeismore 1,405]

I'm sorry you're suffering

I'm using the phone app so I can't see your stats.

Can you tell us when you had your surgery?

What is the Drs prognosis for this and how much longer will you be like this?

Have you seen any improvement in anything?

My heart goes out to you. I pray you start to heal soon!

[alliecat1095 128]

Please do not give up, God is great and he will heal you. I hope and pray that this will be behind you very soon. Please keep me posted of your recovery. I will continue to pray for you. Thank you for sharing your horrible experience,

[StrangelyNormal 182]

You're right... It sounds scary, but out is fun to say