Life on Warfarin

One of the major fears after any type of open heart surgery is blood clots. To overcome this, patients are prescribed anti-clotting drugs like warfarin. The prognosis for patients with heart valve replacements is daily warfarin for life. Luckily for me, since a piece of my own heart has been used to fix itself, I only need a low dose of warfarin for two months.

How does warfarin work? Apparently it prevents blood cells from aggregating together. Does it work? Yes, so well in fact that if a person taking warfarin gets a cut or scratch, the blood won't clot there either! Obviously this raises the issue of taking care not to cut oneself or risk bleeding to death. Sobering thought really.

This morning I woke up, and felt a big booger in my nose. As is natural, I stuck my finger in to remove the slimy thing. However along with booger came a little spot of blood. And then the warm sensation of blood slowly flowing into my nostril. It took more than five minutes to stem the tide of blood! I have a feeling that this is going to be a long two months!