Back in January 2010 I almost died.
I woke up one morning having incrediable chest pains when I took a breath in and out. I struggled to wake up my fiance Dennis, and he immediately saw that I needed to go to the ER.
What seemed like hours to me, we made it to the hopsital (a 5 minute drive) where I was put into a wheelchair and Dennis had to give them all of my information, because I was still unable to get a good enough breath to talk.
What was happening to me?
After a while at the hospital the doctors had narrowed it down to two things; pneumonia or pulmonary embolisms. To me, the answer was easy, pneumonia....simply because I didn't know what a pulmonary embolism was, and that is what I thought I had had for the past couple of weeks.
Let me back up here.....
Me being me, wanted to lose weight starting January 1st for my upcoming March wedding. I had three months to work as hard as I could to lose any extra weight to be a stunning bride. My friends and I decided that we would all do PX90 together...PERFECT!!
All was going well for the first two weeks and then I started to feel sick. It started with a congestion, no biggie there. I braved on and still worked out. Then things got weird. I would walk a few steps and become insanely winded. I would walk from the kitchen to the bedroom and have to stop and rest. THEN when I took deep breaths, my chest would hurt.....yikes....to me this sounded like pneumonia.
So I called out of work on a Friday and rested all day, and did the same over the weekend. By Sunday I wasn't feeling better so I took Monday off and went to the doctors. I explained to him everything that I was feeling and suggested I had pneumonia, but he simply wrote it off as allergies. (Seriously?).
The next morning was the morning I woke up in sheer panic because breathing both in and out was causing me intense pains.
OK Back to the story.
When I got back from the chest X-Rays the doctor told me that they had ruled out pneumonia and I had very large pulmonary embolisms in both lungs and that I needed to be sent to the ICU immediately. The doctor oh so gently told me that if I had waited any longer to come to the ER, I would have died.
PAUSE
1. I still do not know what "pulmonary embolisms are."
2. I don't know what the ICU is.
And that is when I learned two very scary facts.
1. A Pulmonary Embolism (PE) is a bloot clot that forms in your body, most commonly in your legs, breaks off, travels through your blood stream and goes into your lung, blocking you from getting oxygen, which often causes sudden death.
2. The ICU stands for Intensive Care Unit where they send patients in critial condition and/or patients that are in baaaaaaaad shape.
By this time, I was hooked up to an oxygen tank since my oxygen level was at 30% (yes my lungs were functioning at 30%) and I was already getting weighed for my heporin IV.
After poor Dennis called my parents and friends to tell them I was in the ICU, we finally got some information about my situation.
Basically, somehow, bloodclots had formed in my body. Then (probably a week or less ago) they broke off, traveled through my blood stream and into my lungs. One of the clots was large enough to saddle my air passage and suffocate me (causing death), but thankfully it broke in half and went into both of my lungs instead. That is the one part of the WHOLE ordeal that I can't wrap my head around. One stupid little detail of the clot breaking in half or staying in one piece was the difference between me living and dieing. End result, I was still alive, but just barely.
After a few days in the ICU and a couple weeks in the regular hospital, I was released. I was at first put on a liquid blood thinner to prevent any new clots from forming, then a pill verison, and evenutally my lung function was improving. There is no way to get rid of the clots in my lungs, they go away with time, and the blood thinners were a way of preventing new clots from forming.
I didn't return to work for over a month, and I had to go to the doctors at least twice a week to make sure my blood was at the proper thinness to prevent more clots.
So wait.....what caused the clot in the first place?
Since I was a generally healthy person before this whole ordeal, the only two things that could have possibly contributed to a clot forming in my body was A. Very long car ride from NH to PA with a major traffic situation due to the snow a couple weeks before and/or B. The Estrogen from my Birth Control that I had been on since 2001. Crazy Right?
I'm not entirely sure WHY I'm blogging about this and how it relates to my Crossfit career. I think it just comes to the forefront of my brain around this time of the year. I still can't drive by that hospital and not remember how long I was there for and all the emotions I went through.
Anyway, I'm happy to still be here! (and if anybody has any questions about what happend, I'd be happy to talk about it more!).
Endurace:
300 Meter Row x 4
Strength:
3 x 10 Back Squats
WOD:
5 Rounds
7 Shoulder to OverHead (75lbs)
35 Double Unders
10:22
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