Steals 600 gold from your pack…

As I sit here waiting for my green tea to steep and cool down a bit so I can take my Coumadin, I figured I could make a post about an interesting life threatening and life changing event that happened just a week after I hit level 34 (aka: my 34th birthday) and why I now have a -2.5 applied to by blood clotting ability.

Sitting at home one night, about to turn in for the evening, I made some herbal tea with cayenne pepper. A nice spicy mix that opens the pours and helps absorb the herbal goodness. I was on the phone and within a few minutes felt a strange pain in my side. Felt like a side stitch from running, hurt when I would breath deeply. I shrugged it off to possible dehydration after a long birthday weekend: I worked out a bit, went out drinking, and I spent a long hot summer day at a flea market (of which I recently realized that all flea markets now remind me of the goblin market in Hellboy II).

The pain didn’t go away that night, got worse the next and didn’t have any signs of going away after another two days had passed. Finally I went to the walk-in-clinic. Didn’t get anything resolved there except to lose 3.8lbs a day later (they thought I was constipated so I um…took care of things) and per their suggestion went to the E.R. the next day. A CAT Scan later I was diagnosed with a small pulmonary embolism, otherwise known as a blood clot in the lung. Talk about unexpected, not to mention extremely frightening as well.

Considering my specs everyone, including myself, was surprised by this. I am only 34 years old, 5′9″ and about 173lbs, work out 2-4 times a week, don’t take long plane rides or commutes, don’t have a history of blood clots in my family, and although I work in Information Technology, I am frequently needing to get up from my desk and walk to various user’s workstations to assist them. I don’t meet the sedentary lifestyle that one would expect to find in someone suffering from a blood clot.

Ninety six hours later, $600 shorter, and after 8 shots in the stomach of Heparin I was released into the wild to resume my day-to-day activities. However I will be on Coumadin for the rest of my life, causing my PT INR level to be at 2.5 (meaning I am going to clot slower than the average person). This is due to me being diagnosed with a mutation. Not of the cool X-Men kind, but of Thrombin. According to the hematologist this makes me roughly 3X more likely to have a blood clot than if I were “normal”.

I am not sure what is involved in determining what one’s overall likely hood is of developing a clot, but there are two risk factors that came up, which really stuck out for me given my past EQ and WoW days, which are frequently seen in the gamer/geek subculture:

• Being over weight
• Spending hours sitting in the same position (raids, grinding, I.T. work)
• Living a generally sedentary lifestyle

Health concerns have been brought up for years. Whether it be Korean gamer dying after a 50 hour Starcraft marathon in 2005 or a 14 year old UK gamer suffering from a blood clot in the leg in 2004. Stories like this have caused some gamer/geeks to be more health conscious. Taking a break for a quick walk, making it to the gym in the morning, or any other manner of physical activity to help prevent possible medical issues.

Luckily these days things are getting even better. The gamer/geek is now playing DDR , Wii Fit (or various other fitness games), and is even brought to a standing position frequently to provide a better Rock Band performance for people in their living rooms. Although this mutation of mine is rare, and doesn’t require any special registration, it has made me want to spread the word about other steps that can be taken to decrease the risk of a clot.

For me, some of the earliest steps I took, more to pass the time and try to get in shape (less of a blood clot prevention attempt) happened in my EQ days when I noticed I had an 8 minute med time frame. Yep, 8 minutes to get my mana back to full. Since I soloed a lot, there was a lot of medding and waiting. This prompted me to do push ups, sit ups, and bicep curls with some 20lbs dumbbells to pass the time. Or another example, after hitting a new level with my secondary character (a Bard), I would set them swimming/singing in the corner of Qeynos while I went for a quick jog, waiting for their skill to increase before heading out to quest again.

Those little steps can help a lot in the long run. So, next time you are waiting on Leeroy to get some chicken or for the rest of your Clan to log on, take a few minutes to get the blood flowing. It will pass the time, make you feel better, and (in my case anyways) may save you a $600 trip to the E.R. with a life threatening condition.

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