Well, apparently.
If you didn't know, I take coumadin, also known as warfarin. It's a blood thinner. What's that you ask? It basically makes my blood harder to clot. You know, when you slice your lips open with your own teeth (been there, done that) and it starts to bleed? For normal people, vitamin K and lots of other goodies in your blood help close up the wound. But my blood thinners reduce the amount of vitamin K produced in the liver; therefore, I bleed. A lot. Nosebleeds will be the bane of my existence.
So I guess you understand why it can be used as rat poison. The rats ingest the warfarin and basically undergo massive internal hemorrhaging. Pretty picture, ain't it? Don't worry, my dose is probably similar to the rat poison dose... and I'm approximately 200 times the size of a rat.
Why do I take this kind of medicine? Well, when I was approximately 7 years old, I was misdiagnosed by my family doctor one time I was sick. The doctor just thought it was the flu and prescribed some cold/flu medicine. But actually, I had the Kawasaki disease. No, it doesn't have anything to do with motorcycles.
I ended up with a fever so high that I was admitted to the hospital overnight, where they finally diagnosed me properly. Fortunately, the fever subsided overnight, and I was all better.
Not.
Well, the fever did subside. But while my body was desperately trying to kill off the virus by raising my internal furnace, my coronary arteries (the arteries that supply my heart muscles with blood) were disagreeing. Basically, picture my coronary arteries and my fever-inducing-parts-of-me (not sure what really induces a fever...) having a fight, and the fever winning... for a while. My coronary arteries starting swelling... and that's not good.
When the fever stopped, the swelling stopped. Thankfully. If the fever lasted any longer, they probably would've blown up. Literally. And I probably would have died.
So even though I was better from the Kawasaki disease, I had three aneurysms (swollen arteries). The aneurysms themselves weren't too much of a problem; it was the part of the artery right afterwards. When the arteries swelled, the area right after the ballooning part actually shrunk. Picture an artery with cholesterol build up. That's basically the end portions of my aneurysms, except replace the cholesterol with my artery wall.
So obviously I'm more susceptible to heart attacks. Which is why I take the meds to stop my blood from clotting too easily.
But at what cost?
Eh, it's something I've learned to live with. I have to check my blood clotting level (INR... don't know what that actually stands for) every so often, and take my meds nightly, but it doesn't stop my daily life too much. I'm not supposed to take part in any activities that might end up giving me a concussion because those can be fatal for me, but I did martial arts (black belt in TaeKwonDo), snowboarding (comfortable on most slopes), rock climbing (my favourite sport), as well as many other things.
Do you have any medical conditions? Take any meds? (maybe they're also rat poisons... who knows) Comment below or respond @KoreanWonderBoy on twitter.
This was your daily F.U.C.K. for Tuesday, July 30th, 2013. Every moment in your life is precious; you could literally be a blood clot, a misdiagnosis, a cough, a sneeze, an itch, a seizure, a stroke, a heart attack, or just one blink away from exhaling your final breath. Live with the people you love, saying things you mean, and lead your own way through life using your heart, not others' words.
