Woman
Youth Doesn’t Equal Invincibility: Helen’s Story
The day my life almost ended was a picturesque, snow-dappled Saturday in December. I was a 22-year-old on an adventure, visiting Germany for the first time and staying with some old friends. I couldn’t wait to see what an authentic German “Weihnachten” had to offer. Little did I know, my life was about to be…
I’m a 22-Year-Old Nursing Student, and I Experienced a Blood Clot: Katie’s Story
It was just another day of college as I got up to go to my clinical rotation for nursing school. When I got home, I noticed a sharp pain under my left breast that, as the night went on, radiated to my back and up my left shoulder blade. Just to be safe, I went…
Back Pain was my First Symptom: Kassidy’s Story
Five years ago, at the age of 23, I developed dozens of blood clots in both of my legs, my pelvis, and my stomach. Two weeks earlier, I was experiencing daily back pain on my lower right side. My OB/GYN chalked the pain up to ovarian cysts, which had never been a problem before. I…
MTS Can Cause Deadly DVTs: Lorilyn’s Story
I worried a lot about being diagnosed with illnesses that ran rampant in my family, such as breast cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The one thing I never worried about was blood clots. In 2003, I turned 40 years old, and I had surgery to remove the right lobe of my thyroid, due to a…
A Life-Threatening Diagnosis Changed My Life: Ashley Cassidy’s Story
I was 23 years old in 2013, and I was a healthy individual who was very physically active, running, and going to the gym preparing for boot camp. It was July and two months before I was scheduled to leave for basic training to fulfill my Navy Corpsman contract that I had signed seven months…
Trust Your Gut: Kaitlyn’s Story
In April 2013, I traveled to Japan to visit my brother, and then to California to visit my grandfather. When I got home from my two-week vacation, I woke up one morning with a shooting pain in my leg. I thought perhaps I slept wrong or I wore the wrong shoes at work the previous…
Surviving a Silent Killer: Lisa’s Story
I always thought of myself as person who wears many cape: a mom, a wife, and a friend. I was always on the go, shuffling my oldest child to high school and a job, taking both younger kids everywhere with me, while doing errands for myself, the house, the school, our brewery and at the…
A Second Chance at Life: Danet’s Story
On January 4, 2010, I had just given birth to my first child at the age of 20. It was an emergency C-section that I was not planning on. The next day, I was having a hard time breathing, and I informed the nurses about this. They told me it was normal pain from birth…
Surviving Made Me Stronger: DesiRae’s Story
In December 2015, I was a 32-year-old newlywed and my life seemed perfect. Three months earlier, Brian and I had our dream wedding in Sonoma, CA, and were planning our first Christmas together as Mr. and Mrs. Since we went home to the Midwest to visit our families over Thanksgiving, we decided to take a trip…
The Day that Haunts Me Still: Dawn Leslie’s Blood Clot Story
On Sunday, August 9, 2015, after two weeks of pain in my right leg that felt like a strained muscle, I finally went to an urgent care facility. The doctor looked at my calf and stated that it should not have been swollen for two weeks from a muscle strain. She was very clear that…
