Healed of a Deep Thrombosis

My first bout of Deep Venous Thrombosis was one of the hardest things I have lived through. DVT settles mostly in the calf muscles, and for me that meant aching, a burning that would not let up, swelling that kept growing, skin that turned red and then an ugly purplish color, and pain sharp enough that I could think of little else. I had just given birth. Once I got home I saw that my left leg had swollen, and having no clue what was behind it, I called our family doctor.

He asked about the symptoms and I described the odd burning running through the lower part of my legs. He told me to get to a hospital right away, so I went to the ER for a fast look-over. The staff wrote down everything I had been taking, including prednisone and hydrocortisone to keep my rheumatoid arthritis in check. That treatment started in 1988, back when plenty of doctors said nothing to their patients about what side effects a drug might bring.

The physician on duty ran his checks, handed me painkillers, and because it was the weekend, told me to return Monday to see a specialist. The pain got much worse that night. I was back in the ER the next day, where another doctor looked me over and said nothing was wrong, that I simply needed to wait until Monday. This was supposed to be the finest hospital around, so I did what they said and went home again. My leg had swollen to the point where I half expected the skin to split open. I rang other hospitals too, but no one nearby handled this kind of thing.

When Monday finally came and the specialist got a look at me, he admitted me on the spot. He explained that the leg had clotted to 98 percent at a vein junction that could not have been more dangerous. Because the weekend had passed with no real treatment, he said I needed to prepare for the leg to come off, and he put my surgery in the queue.

I was gutted. I had pushed and pushed for help, and each time they sent me home with nothing but a prescription for painkillers, and now here I was. Worse still, they pulled the prednisone and hydrocortisone immediately, and my arthritis erupted. Everything seized up. I could not move at all. The inflammation tore through my body like a fire catching dry brush, and every nerve lit up with pain that no medication could touch, a burning electric current running down into the bones. The slightest shift of my body sent me into agony. All I could do was lie there, stare at the ceiling, and cry by myself in that hospital room.

I started to pray then in a way I had never prayed. I did not want to lose the leg. My daughter was only weeks old, and I asked God to keep her safe and to let me be with her again. I let go of the resentment and bitterness I had been carrying about the whole mess. I pictured walking on both legs. I built the scene in my mind of what I would see when I was back with my family, and I poured whatever I had into staying fiercely positive and finding some way to rebuild my own strength.

Then the doctors came into my room, and something about them had changed. They were more careful now, more deliberate, and they weighed the case for and against taking the leg while my whole body was so inflamed. After a long back and forth they chose to try a course of medication first. The clot began to break up. My leg eased back toward normal.

To my own amazement, after a stretch of observation they let me go home, and I held my baby again. Over the following months I worked hard in physical therapy to get my movement back. I trained until I could stand on my own. What mattered most was that I had made it home to my family and had lived out the picture I held onto of getting well. The whole ordeal showed me where my own strength comes from, and it is why I tell other people to live fully and to refuse to give up, whatever the world throws at them.

-Anonymous Contributor