The pharmacist at CVS told me the name brand version of the birth control I was on would be free under my insurance, as opposed to the $50 I was paying for the generic version.
“Do you think your doctor would be okay with that?”
Um, yeah I guess. It’s the same drug, just a different brand. Go for it.
Spoiler alert: I was wrong.
December 2016 I switched from Ocella (generic) to Yasmin (name brand). About 4 ½ months later I went to Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival for the first time in the desert where I unknowingly (amidst living my best life) aided Yasmin in bringing to fruition what the drug had most likely set into motion months before.
Coachella was everything I imagined it to be and more – blue skies, palm trees lit up in the night sky, creativity and art surrounding you for a square mile or two, music coming from all angles. Thousands of people from all different backgrounds all wearing the same flower crowns and crop tops (just kidding, but really to see thousands and thousands of people all living life peacefully and with so much zeal was pretty awesome). But, as it turned out, 2 long car rides cramped into the backseat of a Civic plus 3 days of being in the heat, consuming mostly beer for hydration instead of water (I’m shaking my head at myself too, it’s fine) didn’t bode too well for me in the coming month.
When I got back from Coachella I noticed an unusual pain in my left leg behind my knee. This is where (if you haven’t already…) you start shouting at me like this is a movie and the main character is doing something that makes you want to jump through the screen and slap him or her upside the head. But the character can’t hear you. And you can’t jump through the screen. And unfortunately, this isn’t a movie and I couldn’t hear my future self, or you dear reader, shouting at me to GO TO THE DOCTOR.
In my defense…
I’m an athlete. If you’ve read my blog before, you know this. I played division 1 volleyball with shoulders that would come out of their sockets frequently (loose ligaments – thanks, genes!). I played my senior year with tendonitis in my knees (which previously I definitely underestimated the severity of… Tendonitis? Yeah, okay… come talk to me when your shoulders come out of their sockets. I was wrong. Tendonitis sucks). I had a round, bloody wound on my knee for what seemed like all 5 years of my college career that was dubbed the ‘bullet hole’ because that’s what it looked like – it was from the hardwood floors (and faulty kneepads… and probably faulty diving technique on my part). I played with bruises all over my knees, hips and elbows – we all had them. It looked like we’d been in a weird fight or fallen down some stairs, but it was just our dedication to defense (defense wins games). All this to say – I’m a typical athlete. Typical athlete who thinks she’s invincible. I also was embarrassed because I thought the pain in my leg was from walking 12 miles a day on average at Coachella.
Anyways, a few weeks later the pain went away over-night. Score! Told you guys it was nothing!
JK.
It was a blood clot that caused a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) that shattered and was traveling through my body, wreaking havoc.
Turns out, Ocella and Yasmin have differing levels of hormones in them.
Studies have reported that women who take Yasmin face up to 3 times the risk of developing blood clots as women who take other oral contraceptives. In July 2012, Bloomberg News reported that Bayer (the parent company) had settled more than 1800 lawsuits alleging serious blood clot-related injuries for approximately $400 million.
Good to know, right? Probably better to know BEFORE it happens to you. And it can. You never think it will, but I’m here to tell you that it can.
Anyways, I didn’t know it was a DVT at the time. I just thought the pain in my leg had gone away, as all soreness eventually does.
About a week later I started to notice it was hard to take a deep breath. You know, those good, deep fill-up-your-whole-lungs type breaths. Then I started feeling extremely winded after very brief bouts of walking – like the 3-minute walk between buildings at work. I literally looked, sounded and felt like I just ran a 4-minute mile. It was freaky, and I FINALLY convinced myself that I needed to go to the doctor. I thought maybe I had a virus or something. A lot of people at work had been getting sick around that time. I made absolutely no connection between the prior leg situation and this (stop yelling at me, this isn’t a movie!).
About a week after that, on May 16th, I woke up and noticed a dull pain in my side every time I took a breath. I went to work and resolved to go to the Urgent Care the next day because May 16th is my mom’s birthday and we had family dinner plans that night. What’s a little life-threatening condition when you’ve got margherita pizza and a side of meatballs on the mind?
My body had other plans.
At around 6pm it alerted me with the utmost urgency that something was very, very wrong. The dull pain had become a paralyzing pain so intense that I was having a seriously hard time breathing and was beginning to panic. Everyone had already gone home for the night. I walked slowly to my car – the slightest movements would cause this horrific pain like someone was stabbing me with a knife in my side. I thought maybe this is what it felt like to have a kidney stone? My dad and brother both had one before, so it was plausible. Again, no connection to the previous leg pain that miraculously went away.
I forwent the margherita pizza and meatballs and drove myself to the ER that’s around the corner from my office in Culver City. First smart move I’d made in a while, I know. I definitely couldn’t make it all the way home to the South Bay – things were very rapidly going downhill for me, to put it lightly.
After the most painful and long diagnosis process imaginable (x-rays, ultra sounds, CT scans, the works) they told me I had what’s called a bilateral pulmonary embolism, or essentially, blood clots in my lungs. As well as clots still left in my leg (this is when the light bulb finally went off about the leg pain). The doctor told me I was very lucky and that I came to the ER in the nick of time.
Thank God for that.
SERIOUSLY, thank God for that.
My mom joined me at the ER and didn’t leave my side (on her birthday!). She slept in a chair, she ate hospital food, she drank hospital coffee. The woman is a saint. And I couldn’t have gotten through the next week (and honestly, every day since) without her.
I was admitted to the ICU, given some narcotic pain medication (finally) and was put on oxygen since I was having a hard time breathing.
The first thing the nurse in the ICU said to me was, “you know Serena Williams had a pulmonary embolism too” and it kind of went over my head because I wasn’t in the mood to chat about pop culture at the moment, what with the inability to breath and all. However, what she said stuck with me and later came to be something that I relied on for strength – Serena Williams is a badass, strong, powerful athlete. And we went through the same thing at the same age. It gave me hope, and someone to look up to in a way that I never had before.
The next week would be filled with fear, pain and frustration. More than I knew what to do with. But it would also be filled with prayer, strength and progress. It would be filled with phone calls and texts, flowers and cards and visits. It would be filled with amazing doctors and nurses, the most supportive bosses imaginable at work, and most of all – friends and family. Also, a lot of jello. And my personal hospital favorite – cranberry juice with crushed ice.
It hurt to lay flat or on my side. It hurt to move. It hurt to do anything that caused my torso to contract at all – hurt to laugh and hurt to cry. I couldn’t get out of bed. Could just barely lift my body up enough for a bedpan to slide under me so I could go to the bathroom (TMI?). It was difficult to eat – my mom fed me tiny bites extremely slowly, and it was difficult to talk much (because of the lack of breath).
I was so fearful of the clots going to my brain and causing a stroke or to my heart and causing a heart attack, that the first few nights in the ICU I was sure that if I fell asleep I would not wake up.
Some background -- I’m one of those people who still watches Greys Anatomy. So naturally I was ready for the worst to happen.
But my vitals stayed strong. My body was doing what it was supposed to do. The doctors told me it was likely thanks to my young age (I was still in my twenties then ☹) and my general good health and background as an athlete that my body was able to stay so strong throughout so much internal trauma.
I was put on blood thinners and over the course of the next week I made ample progress. Eventually I no longer needed the oxygen, I was able to get up to use the bathroom, and soon enough I was taking laps around the PCU (Progressive Care Unit, which is a step down from ICU) slowly but surely. The blood thinners thin out your blood so that your body can break down the clots like it’s supposed to. When you’re on blood thinners, you can bruise and bleed internally and externally very easily so it’s important to be careful (skydiving was definitely out).
I went home after 7 days and lived at my parents’ house for about a month as I needed lots of help and more so, lots of love and reassurance.
A week after being discharged, I was sitting on the couch at my parents’ house watching TV and felt a sharp pain in my left butt cheek. Fear flooded my insides, making my whole body warm and my heart sink down into my stomach. I imagined the blood clot in my leg traveling up, passing through my butt on its way to my heart. My heart started beating inexplicably fast and I felt like I might pass out. My body was tingly. I thought I was having a heart attack. My mom called 911 and an ambulance came to get me. Back to the hospital I went.
More ultrasounds and CT scans and echocardiograms and blood tests. More waiting.
The ER doctor told me that my chest CT was clear – the clots in my lungs had dissolved. The clots in my leg were still there, which was to be expected because extremities take a lot longer to heal. He told me he could not find anything medically wrong with me. Then he asked, in his best therapist voice, “Is there anything that may be causing you stress or anxiety?”
UM, YOU MEAN BESIDES THE WHOLE PULMONARY EMBOLISM SITUATION? Besides the fact that when you Google ‘pulmonary embolism,’ it has ‘Is it painful to die of a pulmonary embolism?’ as one of the questions ‘people also ask’? Besides the fact that people kept telling me how lucky I was? Besides the fact that I felt like it was going to happen again at any given moment and this time I wouldn’t be so lucky? BESIDES ALL OF THIS, DOCTOR?
I didn’t actually say it that aggressively, but come on doc.
“Yes, maybe there is something at home or at work that is causing you stress?” he asked.
I was discharged and went home in the wee hours of the morning. I was too afraid to sleep. I made my mom sleep next to me. I prayed and I prayed. I told myself over and over again, “You’re oooooookay. You’re oooooookay.”
There was no official diagnosis, but everyone seemed to think it was a panic attack. Made no sense to me at the time but makes total sense now.
I went in to see my pulmonologist and I went to see a cardiologist. Just to make sure. They helped debunk a lot of the fears that I had floating around in my brain and assured me that I was safe – the blood clots in my leg were not going anywhere now that I was on the blood thinners.
And eventually I found the silver lining.
Had I not gone to the ER that night, I would not have known that the clots in my lungs were already dissolved and gone.
There’s always a silver lining. Somewhere. Somewhere in the midst of all the fear and darkness, there is some small amount of goodness to be found. Some truth to be found. And sometimes it makes all the difference to find it.
Anxiety is something that may be with me for the rest of my life to some degree – or at least for a while. I’ll probably always lean on the side of paranoia when it comes to my body, having ignored so many warning signs at the beginning of this ordeal and suffered the consequences. Anxiety disorders are the most common and pervasive mental disorders in the United States and I have a lot of respect for people who suffer from one. If I learned anything from my bout of anxiety, it was that nothing gets better if you keep all your fears trapped inside of you. If you let them out, and let people in, you can breathe easier.
A few weeks later I was ready to go back to work. I was on the blood thinners for 6 months total. 10 days shy of 10 months after that night I drove myself to the ER on my mom’s birthday, I was officially cleared and set free by my doctor. When he looked at me and said “Well, I think we’re done” my heart sank and I felt the tears welling up. I smiled from ear to ear and asked him if he was sure (haha, doctors love it when patients ask if they’re sure). The answer was yes. No clotting disorders, no remaining clots in my leg.
I left the doctor’s office and felt like I could finally truly exhale. I went to see my mom, told her the news, gave her a big hug and had a complete meltdown. All of the emotion that I’d bottled up for so long (first to avoid the actual physical pain that came with crying, and later to avoid another panic attack) came pouring out.
The doctor told me that as long as I’m not on birth control and don’t smoke, I’m at no greater risk for a blood clot than anyone else.
THANK GOD.
Seriously, I thank God for that every day.
I could write a book on all of the lessons that I learned the past 10 months. In the interest of time, here are my top 10 in no particular order.
Drink water.
Don’t sit for longer than 1-2 hours with your legs cramped. Stand up, move around.
Treat your body with the respect it deserves and also LISTEN to your body.
Always be mindful of what you’re putting into your body. If it’s a drug, make sure you know the side effects. Do your research.
Pray.
You are never alone.
You are not invincible, but you are also stronger than you think.
It will get better.
Everything happens for a reason.
The mind is very powerful. Feed it positive thoughts.
I read a book a few months into my recovery which was written by my boss and my friend, Lauren Miller. It’s called All Things New and it’s one of those books that for whatever reason, mine being what I had just gone through, you feel inexplicably connected to the story and basically just cry the whole way through (this isn't the first or last time I'll talk about this book on the blog). I truly believe that in some master plan, I was meant to read this book at this exact point in my life. And if I hadn’t been working for Lauren at the time, who knows if I would’ve ever found it. God, or the universe, or whatever you believe in – works in mysterious ways.
Basically, all this to say (in Lauren's words):
“That’s exactly what there is. Hope. […] When we’re trudging through the middle place, in the tunnel between already and not yet. Where the light is visible but we’re still in the dark, and the best we can do is believe that eventually we’ll get there, someday, and hold each other’s hands until we do. There may not be calm or certainty or confidence, but there is hope. That the tears aren’t forever. That one day all things will be new.”
And with that, this:
“I catch sight of my reflection in the window beside the front door. Seeing myself there, here, scarred and still a little damaged but okay, I’m swept up in a sense of gratitude for the accident. Not just that I survived it, but that I went through it at all. […] Yes, it was awful and hard, and I wouldn’t wish something like that on anyone ever, but standing on the other side of it, I also wouldn’t go back. The view is so much better from here."
