A Success. Sort Of. (99% Bikeless Content)

I had my follow up doctor's appointment today dahn at Mercy Hospital today. It was 90% good news! ALL of my blood work looks great! No signs of "sticky blood", immune issues, or cancer. So that rocks!

The 10% bad news is that there is still swelling in the leg which indicates that the clot is still there. The fact that the clot is still there means that I have to keep taking blood thinners for another 3 months. Not happy about that, but it of course could have been a LOT worse! He seems to think that in 3 months if the Doppler shows that the clot is gone he sees no reason why I would have to stay on blood thinners permanently.

Since all the blood tests came back negative, they still can't pin point why I would have got a blood clot. He mentioned that baseball pitchers can get clots in their arms from over use, but he's never heard or read of a cyclist getting one in the legs, that the vein size and blood volume in the legs would make it damn hard for a clot to form like that.

He then was trying to figure out why my blood isn't thinning proper with the medication. He asked me about my diet and if I eat a lot of green leafy vegetables. I of course said no. I love those vegetables (spinach, broccoli, etc.,), but since starting blood thinners I've not eaten them since the Vitamin K in them counteracts the blood thinner. "Do you eat a lot of other vegetables?" he asked, to which I replied "Yeah! A lot, everyday." He response- "Yeah, stop that." WHAT??

He literally called me a freak, and admitted that he RARELY has to tell folks to eat LESS vegetables, but that the fact of the matter is that just about ALL vegetable matter has a lot of vitamin K, and that I should look more toward fruits to get my vitamins, fiber and carbohydrates for a while. Frig! He also dropped the freak bomb a couple times about my "hobby" of riding my bike for 12 to 24 hours. What can I say? I'm just a vegetable loving bike freak I guess.

Another low light in that 10% was having to lay back on the table while he double checked my boyz for "lumps". Yeah, that was just great. BUT there were no lumps! So I guess that was worth the $30 co-pay. You would think for $30 I'd could have at least got a nurse and a happy ending! HEY NOW!

So all in all a nice bunch of news. I just have to revamp some of my favorite recipes and continue to be careful of crashes on the bike. I also need to start wearing a compression stocking all day to help get the swelling down. He said that if I noticed swelling while riding or racing I may want to consider wearing them during races. I can't imagine doing that unless I went with the Shelmire look...

Not sure I could pull the look off as well as Aaron, but I might be forced to try. Lets hope it doesn't come to that, eh?

__________________________________________________________

That's it, I'm off to watch the snow fall and plan either a ride OR a ski on the rail trail tomorrow. Under 4" it will be a ride, over 4 it will be ski. If nothing else in will be to the basement on he trainer to utilize a new gizmo I picked up today.

Tried it out on my TV and it worked great! Real happy with it! Opens up yet another options for trainer boredom. Now if I could just find something to keep the "Little J-Man" from falling asleep I'll be gold!

Later.