Patient Stories

On May 22, 2022, I woke up and had breakfast with my family. As I was getting ready for my day, I felt dizzy and weak, then I fainted. When I woke up, I projectile vomited.   I eventually made it to the shower. When I got out, I was still feeling weak and dizzy. The…

In March 2019, I was recovering from a broken ankle when I began experiencing odd, unfamiliar symptoms, like shortness of breath and back pain. I thought it was anxiety.   My husband picked me up from work one day, and the second I got in his car, I couldn’t breathe, then I passed out. When he…

During my first pregnancy, I had been feeling faint. Soon after, I started getting headaches with flashing black dots in my eyes.  My midwife had told me that my blood pressure was higher than it should be, and that if I got any painful headaches and started seeing black dots, I should go straight to…

In the summer of 2021, I started to experience extreme back pain. At times, I was unable to sit down or move at all.   Being an active 20-year-old who grew up playing sports, I attributed my pain to a tweak that I just needed to stretch out. But the pain continued getting worse, and my…

I started having intermittent chest pain in March 2021. I thought it was a sports injury and went to see my primary care provider (PCP). By May of that year, the pain was constant, so my PCP scheduled a CT scan.   I arrived at the imaging center and they had not received my order.…

I have been an athlete my whole life. I am a Division 1 swimmer and work out every day. One day, I started feeling a sharp pain in my lower back after lifting weights and thought I overdid it or used incorrect form. It began to progress and I started getting extreme pain that radiated…

I’ve experienced deep vein thrombosis twice in my life so far. In 2010, when I was six weeks postpartum, I had cramps in my calf that lasted for three days, but I had no discoloration or swelling. I called my doctor and they had me come in “just in case.” An ultrasound of my right…

I am a 48-year-old male and in March 2023, I was diagnosed with a blood clot spanning from my lower right calf up to the pelvic area.   This was the result of a meniscus procedure I had done on my right knee approximately four weeks earlier. The first symptoms I experienced were tightness, swelling,…

As told by his mother, Jenifer. On Dec. 3, 2020, I took my 18-year-old son, Adam, to the ER. He had severe back and leg pain, and his leg was swollen and purple. I thought that it was a pinched nerve or maybe a kidney infection.    Doctors discovered a massive clot in his left…

I started becoming short of breath around Memorial Day weekend. I’d get winded walking from the parking garage at work to my desk, and walking from my apartment to my car.    Since I had COVID the month before, my doctor thought it could be long COVID and I was given an inhaler.    On June 16,…