Factor II

In August 2023, I had my second bunionectomy. The first was in 2015 with no complications. This time would prove differently. Preparing for surgery, I was advised by the surgical team to curtail my activities in the following days. After surgery, I adhered to the instructions. I elevated my leg often and limited going up…

In December 2022, I had the worst pain in my life in my left side of my buttocks after working out. Being a physical therapist and a retired high-level figure skater, I assumed I had strained a muscle until I was unable to walk or bear weight on my left leg. After three ER visits…

I had an appointment with my PCP on October 5, 2019 for shortness of breath. I could barely walk to my car from his office door. My lower legs were hurting. I was 56 and on no medications. He referred me to a cardiologist. The following day, after my morning coffee, I could hardly walk.…

When I was 20, I had some pain in my leg. I chalked it up to a pulled muscle. In the next few days, it seemed to get worse. My mom convinced me to go to the hospital, but they told me I was constipated and sent me home. The pain continued to get worse…

After having provoked blood clots from hip surgery (the symptoms I experienced included leg pain, shortness of breath, and chest pain) I asked my primary care physician if she would order bloodwork to determine if I have a clotting disorder. I was detailing my family members with similar issues: my mother had an unprovoked pulmonary…

In October 2020 at age 28, I woke up at 5 a.m. with back pain. It felt like I pulled a muscle. Throughout the day, the pain got worse. It hurt to sit or lie down. By the next morning, I was vomiting from pain and decided to drive myself to the emergency room. The…

In the spring of 2018, I began having severe shortness of breath. I’m an asthmatic and was using a rescue inhaler constantly, but it didn’t help much. After about six weeks of complaining to my healthcare providers, they did a chest x-ray that was normal. Two weeks later, I was back in the office with…

During Covid, I was teaching from home and not as active as I once was. I began feeling short of breath at the start of the week, but attributed it to the bad air quality from fires in the area. On Thursday evening, I began feeling a pain in the right side of my back…

I am a 2x pulmonary embolism survivor. My first one was in July 2013. I had traveled out of the country, come home, and traveled for my daughter’s soccer games. I was on birth control and overweight. We got home from a weekend tournament, and when I went to stand up, it felt like I…

I was in my early 30s and enjoying life as a new mom, but I had been having a rough time for nine weeks, experiencing severe headaches and aphasia. I was worked up by a neurologist thoroughly and had all kinds of tests and scans — an MRI, MRA, an EEG — and everything was…