Diagnosis

I went to the military doctor, because I still couldn’t dorsiflex my foot. After about 15 minutes of us arguing, him telling me it was a pulled muscle and my insistence that it was more than that given the neuro deficiencies, he finally agreed to send me to the Sacred Heart ED to rule out a DVT. Dr. Arguinchona took over my case when I got there. They ran the ultrasound of my leg that the mil doc had requested and like expected there was no sign of a DVT. After doing a thorough exam Dr. Arguinchona asked if I could stay for an MRI, because although she could let me go since we ruled out a clot and wait to see if the other symptoms got better, she really wasn’t comfortable with the sudden loss of function and wanted to make sure there wasn’t something more going on. She said she was doing 2 views, one of my lower leg and one of my knee without contrast in case I’d torn a tendon or something. After completing the first MRI, they pulled me out, told me they were going to go ahead and still do the second, but that after I would be going back for the first with contrast. I’d worked in medical long enough to know if they were going back with contrast that means they found something. I was both relieved that I wasn’t crazy and something really was wrong, but also terrified that it was far worse than anything I was prepared for. Once the scans were done, I went back to the room. She came in and told me that I have an “impressive” vascular malformation and that she’d consulted with the vascular surgeon and they would be scheduling me for a follow up with them. Then she put me in this lovely ortho boot.