Early last week when I was walking the dogs, I decided to walk back up the mountain at a little faster pace than normal. Since I had recently had a shot in my knee, I was feeling good. I could tell that it had been a long time since I had done anything more than a slow walk. I was breathing hard by the time I got to our driveway, which is steep. I was breathing even harder at the top of the drive, but so what, I thought, it will be good for me.

I tried it again the next day, and I had to stop once or twice. Well, I thought, it will be a process.

The next day I stopped a lot. Not right, I thought. The day after, I could barely get back up the mountain to home. Definitely not right. I called my doctor, and he recommended that I go to the emergency room. That was Friday. I didn’t feel like going, so I didn’t. But Saturday I did feel like going, so I did. And it was a good thing.

I had multiple blood clots in my lungs. They admitted me, and I spent from Saturday night to Monday on a heparin drip. Any time I tried to breathe deeply, my breath caught in my lungs and made me cough, so I was constantly struggling to breathe. I was winded from getting up and going to the bathroom. I spent ten minutes breathing hard to recover. I could barely talk on the phone for gasping for air.

A chest x-ray and a CT scan had shown a lot of little blood clots. Although each was small, they added up to a major load on my heart and lungs. They also found a nodule in one lung. They assured me they would refer me to someone who could follow up on it. They didn’t seem worried.

But I was worried.

I had no pain initially, even when my attempts at a deep breath ended in coughing. Sunday night my back started hurting enough that I asked for acetaminophen, which helped some. But now it was back pain that kept me from drawing a deep breath. The back pain seems to be muscular, rather than associated with the clots. No one in the hospital seemed concerned with the back pain. Maybe every patient has back pain after a few hours in a hospital bed.

By Monday they figured all my vitals looked good enough, so they sent me home with a prescription for Xeralto for the clots and hydrocodone for the back pain. I was pretty much exhausted when I got home. I had not slept well the whole weekend and had missed most of my meals. Plus, getting enough oxygen into my system was hard work. So I took a pain pill and piled up in bed for a nap. Zoe jumped up, gave my face a good washing and laid down next to me. The next hour was a deep, painless, rewarding sleep. I wouldn’t do the hospital stay again for a lot of money, but I would take that nap again just about any time, for free.

I saw my regular doctor on Tuesday. He assured me that I was right to have been worried, because I could have died. He said that since I was active and had none of the normal risk factors, other than perhaps a genetic risk, he didn’t really have any idea why I got the clots. He did say that cancer can cause clots like I experienced. Nice to know that.

He said that the nodule didn’t look like cancer because it was smooth rather than spiculated, that is, looking like it has little spikes on the surface.

Apparently nodules are common in adults. One source said about half of all lung X-rays of adults show a nodule. Also, apparently only a small percentage of nodules turn out to be malignant. Also, nodules smaller than around 9 or 10 mm are less likely to be malignant than nodules that are larger. My nodule is about 10 mm. Not small. Not large. So the nodule is probably not malignant, but there is a smallish chance that it is.

My doctor said that I had weathered the first storm and had come out on the other side. He said taking an anticoagulant reduces my risk of another clot significantly. I am supposed to have an appointment with another doctor soon. They will look at my nodule and decide what to do. A PET scan might show whether it is malignant, and whether there might be other cancers lurking about. They might take a biopsy. They might wait a couple of months and take another x-ray.

I think almost anyone would be at least a little worried at this point. I know I am. I can’t help thinking of my brother, whose doctor discovered his pancreatic cancer when he did an ultrasound on his liver. He found metastases there and in his lungs. I had ultrasounds of my heart, liver and some other abdominal organs. So far no one has said anything about suspicious lumps anywhere but in my lungs, so maybe that’s one worry I should put aside. A PET scan would probably clear that up one way or the other.

I felt pretty good Tuesday, even after visiting the doctor. I can breathe much more easily, I can walk around like a normal person without panting, although I know better than to try to climb the mountain, and I can have a conversation without stopping for air after every word. I can still tell that I’m not getting as much oxygen as my body would like.

In the meantime I have tried to start talking to Leah about what she might do if I end up dead.

I am not a happy person right now. It’s surprising to me how emotional this has made me. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone dies, but not today, right? But this is like feeling a tap on my shoulder, looking around, and seeing a skeletal hand resting there.