Child

Less than two days after giving birth to her first baby, my aunt died of blood clots in her lungs and heart. I was 13 at the time and the news shocked the whole family. Two weeks after her funeral, I had some strange leg pain. I thought I had pulled a muscle or injured…

My family has an extensive history of DVTs and PEs leading up to my teen’s blood clotting episode. I have three grandparents with confirmed clots, one of whom had a filter placed. One of my parents and their sibling both had multiple clots. My teen had spinal fusion with rods for scoliosis, and because of…

On October 24, 2023, my 13-year-old daughter Elise’s arm began to swell and change color during swim practice. Elise has been a competitive swimmer since she was five years old and being at practice was a routine part of her day for many, many years. Her coaches did not know what was wrong with her…

My 14-year-old son died. I took him to the doctors twice the same week of his death. They diagnosed him with light pneumonia in his left lung. He died less than a week later and when the autopsy came back, it showed he had blood clot in his left lung and no pneumonia. I’ve done…

In 2017, I was having redness, warmth, pain, and heaviness in my right leg. I was 17 at the time and I had just begun my senior year in high school a few weeks before. I was in school when I first saw that my leg was red, and I made a mistake by not…

My son William was born August 21, 2020 and was healthy. But two days later, we noticed that his right leg was swelling up and turning purple. He was transferred to our local children’s hospital and he was admitted to the NICU on August 24, 2020.   We were in the NICU until September 11. He…

When I was 14, I flew to my dad’s house in California to celebrate Christmas with him and my siblings. By the middle of the week, my left thigh was swollen, red, and hot and I couldn’t walk on it. I tried many things to get myself moving, but it hurt too much.   When I…

My son Luca is 16 years old and has a rare clotting disorder called protein C deficiency. Doctors initially thought it was a bleeding disorder, but it turned out to be a clotting problem. He forms micro-clots that use up the clotting factors, which causes internal bleeding.  It started just before Luca turned two years…

I am a true testament to the fact that a blood clot or blood clotting disorder can affect anyone. As a healthy 14-year-old boy, blood clots had never even crossed my mind. My story begins on Christmas Eve in 2016. I was having trouble walking, and my leg was swollen. I was paranoid about it,…

Early in January 2017, my healthy 16-year-old son Christian began experiencing lower back pain that radiated down the back of both of his legs. He has a black belt in Karate, and we thought he hurt himself in class, as did our pediatrician. A few days later, and after taking over-the-counter medications with little relief,…