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Published on February 28, 2004 By JCY In Home & Family
CT results
 
venogram showing perforating veins
For some reason, doctors and other health care professionals tend to call computerized axial tomography scans "CT scans," while everyone else calls them "CAT scans."  Whatever you call it, we now have the results for Yvonne's thigh.  She has a blood clot that is 3/4"  thick, four inches wide, and about 12 inches long, under the skin and over the muscle of her thigh.  That comes out to be about 36 cubic inches (20 fluid ounces) of blood that bled into the inside of her leg.  Since no bones were broken, it must have come from an arteriole or vein, probably one of the small perforating vessels that enters directly into the muscle.  I suspect it probably was an arteriole, to have bled that much.  The only thing that would have stopped the bleeding would have been the build up of pressure.  No wonder it hurts so much.  The trauma clinic surgeons say this is very unusual.  They had assumed it must have been a seroma, but a seroma should not have caused much pain.  It makes sense now. 

Unfortunately, there isn't really anything to do about it.  All we can do is watch for fever or other signs of infection. 


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