PE

In September 2022, I underwent a foam sclerotherapy on the great saphenous vein in my left leg to treat a varicose vein. This is a minimally-invasive, non-surgical procedure that involves injecting a foam mixture into varicose veins to treat underlying vein conditions. At the time, I was unknowingly Covid positive for the second time in…

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…

I was at work just sitting down when my heart started racing. My Apple Watch alerted me that my heart was beating at 140 bpm, something I had never felt before. I chalked it up to just being overworked and tired. So I sat down drank some water and took a break. My heart started…

Last July, I started feeling tightness in my chest when I breathed in deeply. I ignored it for awhile, as it didn’t seem to cause any real issues. A month or so later, I went to my doctor to make sure it wasn’t Covid or another respiratory infection. The doctor ran basic bloodwork, which came…

I had lower right leg pain for more than a month. I finally went to urgent care in October 2022. I described the pain as a pinging inside my leg and I thought it was a stress fracture. The provider asked a few questions about medications. I told her I took tamoxifen to reduce a…

I’ve always had a history of health anxiety, always expecting the worst whilst hoping for the best. It took many years for me to manage my fears and understand when I was being rational or otherwise. Toward the end of April 2024, I had this horrible chest pain, directly along the left side of my…

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 Sept. 7, 2016, I escaped sudden death by bilateral pulmonary emboli, a side effect of taking hormonal contraceptives. That morning, my heart was racing when I went to the bathroom to get ready. I was winded when I stood up. Denial had kept me from going, but I knew I needed to go to…

I am one of the lucky ones. At 46, I was active and healthy. On April 27, 2020, during a round of backyard badminton with my kids, I felt woozy and dizzy and needed to lie down. I couldn’t move or speak. I had a stroke! More specifically, a posterior cerebral artery (PCA) stroke. I…

I had been feeling unwell for several weeks. I had swelling and pain in my legs and other random symptoms. I had bought almost every leg cream in an attempt to get some sleep at night. All that was pushed aside when my daughter went into labor unexpectedly just a few days before my husband…