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Michelle Beachem
Hi. My name is Michelle Beachem and in 2004 I was diagnosed with Factor V Leiden.
My story begins on Halloween in 2004. My then fiancé and I are going to our friend's haunted house. I put on my costume which includes a corset.
We go out, have fun and come home. When we get home my back feels kind of sore, so first thing I think is that it is the corset. I take it off and feel
a bit better. Over the next few days the pain came and went and I felt pretty crummy over all. On November 6 th, my back was hurting so bad it was making
me cry. I thought I pulled a muscle my fiancé thought that I had kidney stones. I felt better in the morning so I went to work. About an hour into
my shift I was in the worst amount of pain that I had felt in my entire life. My boss told me to go home and rest, she even offered to drive me home.
I barely made it to my car, and through crying and barely being able to turn the steering wheel because of the pain I still don't know how I got home.
I called my fiancé and he rushed home and took me to the ER. For the next 3 hours I sat in the waiting room of the ER I told them that I was having
pain in my back and that it hurt when I breathe. During the three hours the pain subsided a bit and I was moved into the second waiting room. I spent another
two hours in there. Finally they decided to see if they could find out what was wrong with me. I was feeling better at the time and they almost sent me
home! They decided to draw blood and did it from an IV, which they inserted "just in case." As soon as the tests came back I was rushed to the
CT room and pumped full of contrast (yuck!) and was told that I had a PE.
The PE I was told had clotted the entire lower lobe of my right lung. I had no recent leg injures that I could think of and they weren't sure how I got
it. My fiancé had to go home at this point which was terrible for me as it was now 11pm. They put me in a room and started a heparin drip to dissolve
the clot. The next few hours were the most agonizing. The pain that I went through was indescribable. After being in the hospital for a week they finally
agreed that I could go home. I was so happy! Sadly I was sent home with a large canister of oxygen which I had to lug around with me everywhere, and a
prescription to warfarin. I ended up in the hospital again that December with pneumonia because my lung was so weak. They had me take a break from warfarin
so that they could run some blood tests and it turned out that I have Factor V Leiden. Eventually I was taken off the oxygen but I will probably be on
warfarin for the rest of my life due to having Factor V. My sister has been tested and so has my dad, thankfully neither of them had it, we think my mom
might but she hasn't been tested. Having Factor V has made life hell at times but I am beginning to find out how to deal with the things I can and cannot
do. I was 21 when this happened and I am almost 24 now, my fiancé and I have been married for almost 2 years and aside from the occasional high
or low pro-time life is pretty okay.
Thanks for reading my story,
Michelle