kjpepper | Some relief in sight

So my doc referred me to Cooley Dickenson's brandy new Anticoagulation Program yesterday, and this morning I had an 8am appointment with the lady that runs it. Pretty much it's a program strictly for people on coumadin/warfarin, where they can be monitored, have someone to talk to and bounce changes in stuff off of. The best news is my poor skinny veins get a break, they do the INR in house and... it's a fingerstick. With a machine that spits out an instantaneous result. But yeah, I sat with her for an hour describing my experience last week and about my lifestyle. Coumadin is a weird, complicated drug to be on - any little change you make in your medication, vitamins, diet, exercise level what have you, can throw off your INR level.

So she's upped my dosage of the meds again (am now taking the maximum dosage of it, wtf.) Still have the daily belly shots to contend with. She's really nice and readily available and extremely knowledgable about this particular drug regimen, having run the ACP program in Springfield. She doesn't think I'll need to be on thinners permanently either, but does expect me to be a bit of a challenge because apparently it's harder to keep your INR's stable if you're younger than AARP general membership. Really she's the first person that's trully eased me out about all of this - I feel like it's going to be much less ignominious than first look, and knowing someone's pretty much dedicated to keeping me from either clotting again or bleeding to death is a big relief.

I walked to work today. Other than being slightly out of breath when I got here, no real trouble. Yawning and sudden deep breaths are still an issue but I'm so much better right now than I was this time last week it's amazing. Still in the process of not taking breathing for granted, which made the walk in the shyly warm springness this morning quite lovely. It was just nice to be outdoors and alive for a few moments. It's been so long.