PE

On November 7, 2020, I received a phone call from my stepson Conner. I could tell by the fear in his voice that something was terribly wrong. I remember his exact words, “Dad is conscious, but you need to meet us at the hospital now! Dad is in an ambulance they’re taking him to the…

My story begins in May 2019 when I was paying for gas inside a kiosk and a car crashed through the window, barreling into me and nearly running me over.  Months later in December, I had a surgery to repair a torn labrum in the hip. Ten days later, on January 5, 2020, I nearly…

I had a nagging cough for a few days, which later became shoulder pain on Friday, March 18, 2022. I went to a local urgent care center to get checked, and the X-ray showed that I possibly had pneumonia. Despite antibiotics, my condition worsened over the weekend. By Tuesday, March 22, I had shortness of…

In December of 2020 I started having some breathing issues. It was a struggle to make it up stairs and I seemed more exhausted than usual. I thought I was just tired and needed to rest. I told myself I would rest over the holidays and that I would eventually be fine. January rolled around…

In 2017, at 21 years old, I was undergoing my third surgery on my left knee after I had torn my ACL and meniscus playing college basketball. I was back on the court a few short weeks later, but felt that my hamstring was unusually tight. This didn’t seem right to me, so I decided…

I had my first pulmonary embolism (PE) at the age of 30. My symptoms began with prolonged shortness of breath for about six weeks. There were many days when I woke up unable to breathe. I disregarded this symptom because I assumed I was just out of shape. However, my shortness of breath got progressively…

In July 2019, I began experiencing shortness of breath on a regular basis, even if I was simply walking from the kitchen to the living room. I thought it was just a sign of aging, since I was 67 years old at the time. However, it progressed to the point that one day I suddenly…

I am 18 years old and during November 2020 I contracted COVID-19. A few months later, I started having pain in my leg and I found it difficult to breathe. My mom took me to the doctor and they told me it was just anxiety. But three days later, I convinced my mom that something…

The morning of November 14, 2019 I fell in my bathroom and hit my head on the bathtub. I was unconscious, lying in a pool of blood, until I finally gained some life and crawled to call 9-1-1. When the medics arrived, I was barely able to breathe and went into cardiac arrest three times.…

In the fall of 2020, a near-fatal bilateral pulmonary embolism came from nowhere, cause unknown. As a 14-time marathoner and in the best shape of my life, this came as a complete shock. Following my diagnosis, I was put on blood thinners. As an athlete, adjusting to the blood thinners was a challenge. I was…