International

On January 1, 2002, I woke up feeling like I had a weight on my foot and was dragging my leg. As the morning went on, my leg felt like it was double the size of my right, and I was in pain. My husband took me to the emergency room.   The doctor believed I…

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…

In 2018, when I was 21 years old and just over three months postpartum, I was diagnosed with multiple pulmonary emboli (PE). I started having trouble breathing in the early evening which I assumed was just my asthma acting up. This continued all through the night and into the morning. I was using my asthma…

I was diagnosed with a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism (PE) on November 5, 2021, three weeks after my 23rd birthday. Everything started as a pain in my calf. The funny thing is that the pain began mid-workout, making me believe it was a pulled muscle.   After a few days, the pain started to travel upwards…

My story begins in February of this year when I felt a sharp, intense pain in my ribs. Assuming it was a pulled muscle from a workout the day before, I didn’t think anything of it. But by 4 a.m., the pain woke me up. I called the non-emergency services here in the United Kingdom,…

I am a 23-year-old female from South Africa who was on the hormonal birth control pill for skin purposes. As a human physiology and genetics graduate, I knew the risks of taking contraceptives and how it increases blood viscosity, or thickness, but I never thought that it was going to happen to me, even though…

My name is Philip Begley, I am 56 years old, and I live in England. My story began on November 22, 1999. My truck was in for MOT annual service, so my boss said to start work late the next day. The next day came, Tuesday, and I was sitting down, putting my boots on…

I was 23 years old when I gave birth to my daughter in June 2010. During the last few months of my pregnancy, I sat and laid in bed a lot, because I suffered from sciatica, a condition in which compression of the spinal nerve causes pain in the lower back. Everything was normal with…

My name is Jessica Nichols and I am a 28-year-old female living in Cheshire, England. In December 2015, I had the shock of my life when I was diagnosed with a Pulmonary Embolism or blood clot in my lung. I woke up one Saturday with a very sore knee. However, I didn’t think much of it at the…

My name is David Chadwick and I am a 27-year-old male. On January 18, 2016, I was walking to a shop that is about three minutes from my house. I typically use this time to make mobile calls, as the reception in my house is terrible. I was on the phone with my friend when she said,…