Dark Leafy Greens Never Hurt No One

Day 19

Last Tuesday another new nurse named Sue came in to run the blood test via a finger prick. Basically she is measuring for the speed of coagulation and shooting for a measurement between 2 and 3 on a scale of about 5. The result determines the amount of blood thinner to take. I had been right at 2.0 which was making them happy but Thursday's measurement came in at 1.5. A little too low, no big deal, the meds would just need to be adjusted. As Sue picked up to leave she reminded us of the precautions to take along with that of eating no dark leafy greens and the like (with vitamin K). Eh? We asked her about the diet restrictions and as she described it in more detail like that of no cranberries and vitamin supplements, Kirsten and I both had kind of a déjà vu reaction that maybe once we had heard this before. In fact, I had enjoyed a couple of great spinach salads over the weekend. Turns out the vitamin K thickens your blood! But, like I said, your veggies never hurt no one. By this weekend, citing how much more active I seem to be than the usual patient (I am? oh good.) they had me drop the Coumadin and go to one regular aspirin a day. They also cut me free of the home health care. To boot I have dropped the crutches and have used a cane only for outside walks. Today I plan to walk without the cane as well. I'm sleeping ever better, according to Kirsten and, while still taking Lortab we are continually cutting it back. Without it I still get too uncomfortable to be very interested in walking. We're back in Torrey for 8 or 9 days so it is nice we don't need to go into the local clinic for a blood test. Finally, on the medical front, my blood pressure was slowly creeping back up, presumably from no bike riding and we went back to a half my formerly prescribed dose of Lisinopril. The BP obligingly dropped right back down. Still got the lovely surgical hose. Yesterday I drove for the first time, hose and all, just the mile into Torrey for a general store run. No problem including the new relative ease of getting in and out of the car.

The bills have started coming in. No drama, but I'm finally glad to have been paying those insurance premiums. The hospital, not including the surgeon or anesthesiologist was around $35k but the amazing thing is that the prosthesis alone was about $25k of that. Zowie.