As you may have read, Dick Cheney has been diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg, the kind that's' sometimes caused by being immobilized, such as during an airplane flight. (That's why you're supposed to get up and walk around when you fly.)
Reuters reported that the blood clot could break off and travel to Cheney's lungs, heart or brain. Not necessarily, according to The Examining Room of Dr. Charles:
If a piece of the clot breaks off it can travel up to the right side ofthe heart and be pumped into the lungs, where it eventually is toolarge for the narrowing, branching vessels and occludes them - causinga pulmonary embolus that strangles the lung tissue. The only way for avenous blood clot to break off and reach the systemic arterialcirculation (causing a heart attack or brain stroke) would be if Cheneyhad a hole in his heart (patent foramen ovale), or some otherarterio-venous fistula that allowed the clot to bypass the "netting" ofthe lung circulation.
Cheney's blood clot[The Examining Room]
