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Niccy Birchley
In June 2003 I discovered I was 2 1/2 weeks pregnant with my first child. I was 20 years old. My pregnancy was fine and progressed well up until I was 7 months gone and my legs had swelled so much that I couldn't even get my trainers on without laces in them.
I contacted my midwife as I was quite concerned but she dismissed it as water retention and told me to elevate my legs when I was sitting down.
My son, Cain, was born on October 20th, 2004 weighing 8lbs 6oz. I had an extremely
difficult labour as Cain got stuck in the birth canal, was positioned back to
back with me and he came out face first. I was in labour for 27 hours.
When cain was 3 weeks old, I was in agony with my ribs. I initially thought
I had pulled the muscles there from holding him so much but my parents insisted
I went to A & E to get it checked out.
After spending 2 days in hospital without much clue of what was going on, I
was told I had Multiple Pulmonary Emboli. I had 7 blood clots on my lungs. I
was in hosptal for 7 more days being injected every 24 hrs. with Clexane & taking
Warfarin. I then had to take Warfarin fro 6 months after that.
Two weeks after I was disccharged from hospital I went to see a hematologist who ran some blood tests and said he would be in touch with the results. 4 weeks later I got called back and was told that I had a rare blood disorder called Factor V Leiden and was given a whole load of do's and don'ts.
I was also told it was hereditary and that my son had a 50% chance of inheriting
it from me. I finished my course of warfarin and got on with my life as normal
as possible. 6 weeks ago, November 2006, I was hill climbing and I snapped off
the corner of my left knee joint.
Last Monday, 13th october, I underwent an
Arthroscopy (key-hole surgery) to have the broken bone removed. They also had
to cut off some more of the damaged bone and file it down. I was discharged
from hospital on tuesday 14th '06 and told I may have to have another operation
to transplant bone into my knee to enable full use of it again.
This monday
just gone I was rushed back into hospital with an above knee DVT, after having
a scan they found I actually had another 4 clots between the knee I had recently
had operated on and my groin.
2 days later the clots had moved another 5 inches
towards my lungs. I was given Clexane injections again and I am now back on
Warfarin, for life this time. I am only 23 years old and I am nowfacing the
decision between risking more clots and having surgery to regain use of my left
leg or refusing surgery to save from more clots and hoping that one day I will
have some kind of control over my left leg again so that I can continue to bring
up my now almost 3 year old son.
I wanted to share my story to get the point across that if you are ever in any doubt about what you are being told my a health professional, dont just accept it and take their word for it. Everyone makes mistakes and you should ALWAYS get a second opinion if you have the tiniest doubt that they may be wrong.
Gut instinct is there for a reason!