Bigfoot Discovered!

Not the bigfoot we found.

Karen began hobbling around the house Monday evening, complaining that she must have pulled a muscle in her leg. Because there is nothing I enjoy more than telling other people what to do, I asked her to remove her pants and get on the bed. Unlike all those girls in college that ran screaming from the room, she complied. I examined her legs and quickly came to the conclusion that her left leg was swollen from the knee on down to her now much bigger foot. Once Karen confirmed that she didn't recall being bitten by a rattlesnake, we called the doctor. An ultrasound was scheduled for this morning (Wednesday) after Karen cajoled the doctor into letting her go to work for important meetings on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the ultrasound revealed that Karen had a pretty significant blood clot in her leg. This is almost certainly a side effect of the crizotinib and it sucks. If the clot were to break free it could bob along her bloodstream into her lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism which really isn't even half as much fun as it sounds.

The kind of ultrasound we're used to getting.

So now Karen is taking blood-thinning medication to dissolve the clot and prevent new ones. She's going to be taking Warfarin starting right now and will continue to do so for at least three months to be sure the clot is properly deadified. In addition, she'll need to have a series of 3-5 shots of Arixtra over the next several days as well in order to quickly get her blood thinner. And while she couldn't have any grapefruit with the crizotinib, she REALLY can't have it now with  Warfarin in the mix. Luckily, we don't generally eat grapefruit. Like kindergarten gerbils, we prefer to eat our young.

STATUS UPDATE

• Karen has a blood clot in her left leg that has left it swollen and somewhat painful.
• The blood clot is most likely a side effect of the chemotherapy drug she is taking, Crizotinib.
• For at least the next three months Karen will be taking Warfarin, a blood thinner.
• For the next 3 to 5 days, Karen will get a daily injection of Arixtra to more immediately "fix" her blood.