Athlete

I had been feeling bad for more than six weeks, experiencing shortness of breath while doing light exercise, like walking up a flight or two of stairs. I had gone from being able to run 8+ minute miles comfortably to struggling to walk at a normal pace in a matter of weeks. My resting heart…

I became committed to staying healthy in my late 40s. At 55, I was in the best shape of my life, hitting the gym three times a week.  One day after exercising, I felt a pain in my left calf, which I attributed to an overzealous workout. However, it continued through Christmas weekend. I planned…

At the beginning of 2022, when I was 18, I started feeling pain in my chest. Since I was a professional triathlete preparing for the next season’s races, this pain was negatively affecting my training. I ignored the pain and difficulty breathing and pushed myself harder.    However, one night I woke up with extreme pain…

I had COVID for the first time in November of 2020. My symptoms were typical: fatigue, loss of appetite, and shortness of breath.    Once I recovered, I had ongoing yet mild shortness of breath, so when it started happening more frequently, I wrote it off as just a symptom of long COVID. Looking back, I…

I had a pulmonary embolism in the fall of 2016. I was just 24 years old and was an avid runner/marathoner. I had completed about 10 marathons, including the iconic Boston Marathon.   At the time, I didn’t really know what a blood clot was, and I completely missed the signs of a blood clot…

I have always been a relatively active person, and I participated in kickboxing and powerlifting.   It was 2020 and I was one month away from my 30th birthday, doing jump squats in my living room due gyms closed by COVID. I felt a pain in my left hip and thought I pulled a muscle.   …

In the summer of 2022, I started having shortness of breath but thought nothing of it. I had just run an 18-mile trail race the Saturday before, and it can take a few days for your body to feel normal again. A little coughing and sore throat from running in the dirt for four hours…

I will never forget February 18, 2022. At the time, I was a healthy, active 30-year-old, training for my seventh half marathon. Two nights before, I had developed chest pain and shortness of breath. I wrote off the chest pain as a pulled muscle from lifting and dismissed the shortness of breath as anxiety.    But…

I am a 41-year- old woman. I was diagnosed with a massive pulmonary embolism (PE) and a large deep vein thrombosis (DVT), respectively, in my lung and left calf, in March of 2014. I had no idea what was going on. I was making my kids a snack and got so dizzy that it literally…

During the summer of 2012, I was going into my senior year of college and was training for Kent State’s Annual Black Squirrel 5k Race. I grew up playing soccer and I figured running a 5k would be a breeze. Little did I know, it was going to change my life forever. I was up…