I Am So Vein, Vein, Vein

And I am also VAIN.  My journey with my legs began about one year ago.  At the same time I hired my personal trainer and started visiting medical specialists that I didn't even know existed, I also decided I was going to get rid of my UGLY varicose and spider veins on my legs, once and for all.  I didn't know how much longer I was going to have medical insurance, so I high-tailed it to my dermatologist to do my yearly skin cancer check AND remove my ugly veins on my legs. Come to find out, my veins were way too deep.  My dermatologist refused to even touch them with a ten-foot pole.  I was referred to a vein specialist.  Once again, I figured that it would be a quick and simple fix.  Not so much.

Come to find out, the leg and ankle swelling that I had suffered with for YEARS had nothing at all to do with my bad knee (skydiving accident 1988).  It may or may not have had something to do with the 67 pounds I packed on while preggo with Tino.  And it may have also been hereditary.  The vein specialists confirmed that I was not crazy and that the swelling of my ankles and legs from the knee down WAS.NOT.NORMAL . . . nor was it IN.MY.HEAD.  (It was all indeed in my legs.  Ha-ha.) 

What I thought was going to be a quick cosmetic fix, turned into a medically necessary urgency.  I had multiple bad veins on both my right and left legs.  Instead of the blood flowing back up to my heart and recirculating, the blood stopped at my knee and pooled back down to my ankles and feet.  Hence, the reason for the constant leg, ankle and feet swelling AND the consistent throbbing pain that I went to bed with every night and woke up every morning with.  The docs were surprised that I hadn't had any major blood clots or any other setbacks since my veins were in such bad condition.

Today I just had my fourth leg vein surgery.  I only have two more left.  After those, I will have four sessions of this.  And then I will be able to do what I set out to do one year ago . . .  be rid of the spider and varicose VEINS.  Have I mentioned how incredibly GRATEFUL I am for health insurance benefits? 

I do have to say that I thought the whole Lamaze breathing thing for giving birth was completely OVER RATED.  But let me tell you, I have been putting my breathing techniques into good use with these surgeries.  To put it into perspective, just imagine trying to shove a garden hose through the opening of a small coffee stirrer.  And then have an elephant step onto your groin area.  That's what it feels like as they are trying to slip the catheter through the vein and then guide the laser through the catheter.  When they fire up the laser you feel this MAJOR pressure in the groin area.  O.K. so that might be a slight exaggeration, but two of my three child-births were without meds and/or epidural.  If I have to choose between childbirth without meds/epidural and leg vein treatment, I would choose childbirth hands down.  And that IS NOT an exaggeration.