The start of the Clot journey was very unexpected I was age 34 and was 32 weeks pregnant. I was struggling to breathe however I put it down to pregnancy and positioned high.
I had a routine appointment at the hospital to discuss my induction date (I wasn't going to attend as I felt so weak and breathless) however my husband persuaded me to attend. When the consultant saw me, she sent me straight down to central delivery to get oxygen and scans (to be honest I thought they were going to just send me home).
Diagnosis: Arterial thrombosis, Bilateral saddle pulmonary embolism with right heart strain. (layman's terms a huge blood clot on heart and lungs).
I was immediately taken for CT scans, ECGs and took to theatre and thrombolysed (basically clot busting drugs through my neck straight into my heart).
I was in ICU for 3 weeks on different clotting drugs. I developed Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (heparin the commonly used drug) however it sent my blood platelets down to a dangerous level.
I had some testing times in ICU where I nearly didn't make it and I was thrombolysed again. My husband was told to prepare for me not surviving however they would try and save our baby.
I was on strict bed rest and because of how poorly I was, it was then they made a decision to stop monitoring my baby. As a mum this is heart-breaking and every day, I prayed he would be okay.
The consultants in ICU were going to send me from Plymouth to London to have the clots removed purely because they didn't have the expertise however, they made a decision not to as my heart was not strong enough.
My baby boy came at 36 weeks, luckily, he was okay, I however nearly passed away again. I went straight back to ICU for monitoring.
Knowing the risk of dying, I wrote all three of my children's letters for all the special occasions in their lives that I would not be around for.
I'm still not out of the woods however I'm just cherishing the time with my family.
