I am a true testament to the fact that a blood clot or blood clotting disorder can affect anyone. As a healthy 14-year-old boy, blood clots had never even crossed my mind.
My story begins on Christmas Eve in 2016. I was having trouble walking, and my leg was swollen. I was paranoid about it, so I looked up my symptoms. The first condition I saw that matched my symptoms was a blood clot. I dismissed this, as I thought it wasn’t a possibility for me. Blood clots only happen to old people, or so I thought. I remained confident that it had to be a pulled muscle.
Fast forward to December 26, 2016. I found myself sitting in an urgent care with a confused doctor telling me to rush to the children’s hospital. That evening, I was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis, also known as DVT, or a blood clot in my leg. This conclusion came after hours of ultrasounds and testing. Later that evening, I was told I would be taking injections every 12 hours for quite a while. I stayed in the hospital for five days trying to get my INR to a therapeutic level.
Once I was discharged, I had to use crutches to walk, because my leg couldn’t handle very much pressure. It has been six months since that scary experience. I was able to stop my injections after four months. I now take warfarin daily. My doctors are still unable to find out exactly why this happened to me.
This life-changing experience taught me to be thankful for my health, and to always trust my instincts. If you know something is wrong, get it checked out. What I do know is that I am lucky to be okay. My advice to all people is to not ignore your symptoms, because it could save your life.
