A week after I delivered my beautiful, Covid baby in August 2020, my identity as a lifelong runner changed forever.
I was diagnosed with a DVT and admitted to a New Mexico hospital. I felt like my baby had been ripped from me. Covid visitation prevented my husband Dan or my baby from seeing me. I learned to pump breast milk really fast. Dan drove an hour one way to pick up my breast milk in the morning and evening.
I was released on warfarin with an exporian injection bridge. When I showed up at the nearest INR clinic for a finger prick, they told me I didn’t have an appointment. I showed them my hospital printout that said I did. They refused to help because I wasn’t in their system. I hardly kept it together, wearing my 10-day-old baby on my chest. It took me four hours to sort out, all for a finger prick that took 26 seconds to do.
I metabolized warfarin too fast for my seven-day bridge. I got a crash course in drug coverage. A nurse practitioner prescribed more, but insurance only allowed one retail prescription for it before I needed a by-mail pharmacy. It took over a week to process. Without exporian, my DVT worsened and my left leg doubled in size. I couldn’t walk. For my next ER trip, we left our baby with a friend, and Dan packed my breast pump.
At the ER, I was told that I needed a thrombectomy. My previously healthy veins were left permanently damaged. Running became “wogging” (walk-jogging) and was more an exercise in enduring pressure than actual exercise. I lost a part of myself.
Since then, I’ve been remaking that running part of myself. I do Pilates. I do yoga. I have a walking treadmill under my standing desk. I rock compression stockings every day.
I was diagnosed with May-Thurner syndrome and endured another pregnancy, fueled by exporian injections, and we uprooted to Minnesota for better health care. I now commute to a specialist in Charlotte, NC. She recently placed three venous stents from my iliac to profunda junction. It didn’t fix everything, but I can jog now. The first time I jogged out a mile and my leg didn’t feel like a dead stump, I cried again: tears of joy.
