I have for months been looking forward to attending and speaking at the California Assisted Living meeting in the Palm Springs area this week and LeadingAge next week. Neither are going to happen for me. For a week my right calf has been sore, something attributed to lots of standing and walking at AHCA and NIC. Then in the middle of the week I found myself getting unusually short of breath after just a single flight of stairs.

On Friday night, my leg pain was 25% worse, though not terrible, but because I was scheduled to get on an airplane 48 hours later I decided to have it checked out. Medical professionals are not crazy about having nonprofessionals do their own diagnostics so when I was triaged; there was a fair amount of skepticism when I told them I thought I had deep vein thrombosis.

Two minutes with the ultrasound machine on my leg demonstrated that my diagnostic skills were pretty good. Unfortunately some of that clotting broke off and went to my lungs. I am on blood thinners, and doing fine, but no travel for a month.

I am feeling badly that I will miss seeing old friends and making new ones, but I am sure you will have fun without me. Finally, it is a cautionary tale that if you think something is wrong, you should have it checked out even at the risk of feeling foolish for being wrong.

If I had not gone to the emergency department and instead just gotten on a plane on Monday morning the results could have been catastrophic including putting my life in jeopardy. As you can see, I am smiling, feeling blessed that in this case, the fact that things got worse, made things get a lot better. Steve