It’s been almost six months since I wrote to you all about my blood clot experience, and, let me tell you, has it been rough. I’ve gone through a lot of snags that I didn’t expect, but then again I didn’t expect to get a clot either.

I’ve spent the first half of 2009 looking like a heroin addict from all the blood tests I’ve gotten and a pill-poppin’ animal (thanks, Lil Wayne) from all the medications I’m taking. I can’t even count how many times I’ve told the story of what happened and answered countless questions. I particularly love the, “Aren’t you young?” question.

Yes, I’m young.
Does it mean I’m invincible? No.

The first few months were very difficult for me because I was still adjusting to the medication and trying to process the fact that I almost died. Coumadin, or Warfarin, is a blood thinner. I quickly found out that being on blood thinners makes you cold. Almost all the time. So walking to class was hard because I was freezing my little butt off. And don’t even try me on going to parties at night. Since my clot was bigger, it took a long time for it to disappear, which made it hard for me to breathe a lot of the time. Long walks across campus got me winded, and I couldn’t exercise. Pretty much, my whole love for being fit and athletic went out the window.

Along with my lack of exercise, my love for healthy foods like salad, broccoli, asparagus, basically anything green (yeah, kiwi too), was gone. Since foods that are green are rich in vitamin K, a blood thickening agent, I couldn’t eat them unless I did it consistently. I decided it was better not to eat them at all because my blood level was so hard to regulate in the first place.

While on Coumadin, they test your INR (international normalized ratio), which is a fancy way of telling how thick or thin your blood is. The margin is very small, and because I’m so young it made it much harder to get my blood to fall in the range and stay there. While the “average” person with a blood clot takes a few weeks to regulate, it took me about 4 months. I was getting blood tests two or three times a WEEK instead of once a month.

I’ve encountered several issues during this whole ordeal. I can’t be on the Pill ever again, which means I have to be extra careful (and, thankfully, my boyfriend has been great about that).  I’m currently debating my other birth control options. The Depo-Provera shot doesn’t have estrogen in it, but it still carries a slight risk for blood clots. I’m too young for an IUD, so I’m pretty much stuck with the shot or using a diaphragm or condoms.

Another issue is that I get sick… a lot. I’m prone to frequent bladder infections, colds and flu-type illnesses, and I tend to get migraines and headaches frequently.  Unfortunately, because meds affect the blood thinners, I can’t take anything. Think about trying to endure the flu without meds.  Welcome to my clotted life.

In thirteen days I will be of Coumadin and I am excited to celebrate with a salad and margaritas. Finally, I’ll be able to get back to some sort of normal life with vegetables and alcohol!  Not to mention I’ll have the tolerance of a five year old, and that is awesome.  I’m looking forward to not getting goosebumps when it’s 60 degrees outside and being able to walk around without feelings like I ran up ten flights of stairs.  I can’t wait to run into stuff and not immediately bruise, and for my veins to stop looking like I’ve been shooting up in some back alley on campus.

I can joke about the situation now having lived it, but I seriously want every single reader to know how serious a situation this is.  It can happen to anyone on birth control, especially you girls who like to light up. Whether you smoke like a chimney or you “socially” smoke (“I’m so drunk I need a cigarette”), it increases your risk for a clot.  I was lucky; had I not gone to the hospital or if I had been an hour late, I’d be dead.

Birth control has serious side effects like blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.  Take the risks seriously and pay attention to your body!

As college students, we pretty much think of ourselves as invincible, I know I certainly have. Until recently that is. I’ve been in car accidents, including one where my car hydroplaned off a cliff. I’ve drank myself to the point where I should have gone to the hospital. I’ve had my life threatened. But those things never quite hit me to the point where I realized I could have died.

On January 2nd, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning with a searing pain in my left lung and back. It felt like two cinderblocks were pushing on either side of me and every breath felt like a knife going through my lung. I have a low pain tolerance, but this was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I managed to walk to my parents’ room to wake them up as I was gasping for air. My mom helped me back into my room while my dad furiously researched the new medication my dermatologist put me on, convinced it was a side effect. I eventually fell back asleep, but when I woke up again I was greeted by pain that was even worse than before. My mom came in to check on me, and I told her I needed to go to the hospital.

In the emergency room, one of the doctors listened to my symptoms and said “I think you may have a blood clot in your lung.” What? A blood clot? In an 18-year old? I was so confused and scared; I immediately started bawling. They quickly took blood out of my left arm while putting an IV in the other, and I woke up in the middle of a CT-scan. They did ultrasounds on my legs to make sure there were no clots because that’s where most clots originate. About an hour later, another doctor came in and told me they did find a clot in my lung.

I was terrified.

A nurse came in to give me a shot in my stomach that would start to seal the clot to the wall of my vein so it couldn’t break apart or move to my heart. I called my boyfriend and my best friend not really knowing what to say, partly because I was on a massive amount of painkillers and partly because I thought I was going to die.

The doctors believe that my birth control caused the clot, but they are still running tests. I was shocked. I knew blood clots were a side effect of the pill, but they are so rare, especially in women under 30. I received a shot to the stomach twice a day along with various painkillers from morphine to percocet. I was also told I had to be on a medication called Coumadin, a blood thinner, for 6 months. This medication comes with a lot of rules and requires weekly blood tests to determine if my blood is too thin or not thin enough. Depending on that level, I have to adjust the dosage of Coumadin I take. I’ve been on it for a week and the dosage has changed three times. I can’t eat foods high in vitamin K like salad or broccoli, I can’t drink more than 2oz of alcohol.

I left the hospital on January 6 and was allowed to go back to school on the 8th. I got tired and short of breath, accompanied with a much less severe but still noticeable pain in my lung which would not go away for about 6 to 8 weeks according to the doctors. But I’m alive. If I didn’t go to the hospital, I would be dead right now. The clot would have made its way to my heart or my brain, and I would have died. As much as the situation bothers me, and I keep asking why this happened to me, I am so grateful that I’m still here. Things like this don’t happen to people my age, and if it does, it’s usually too late. You hear about the funeral, not the recovery.

I’m glad I can sit at my computer and share this story with you all because I don’t want any of you to go through what I did. I want you to be aware of what can happen, to recognize the symptoms, and realize that birth control and other medicines do have side effects.

If you feel a pain like that, don’t assume it’s something minor because it’s probably not. Your body tells you things, so listen to it.