A Survivor Speaks: Just Remembering by Angi Amerson-Alexander
Not long ago as I was looking through scrapbooks and photos…the memories bombard me as the last 25 years of my son Andrew’s life flash back like 8mm film and I remember the young mother that I was. I see her. I haven’t seen her for so long and the memories flood my mind, and I remember once again.
I see that young, 19 year old mother who not only just had her baby, but was also experiencing her first clotting episode with no ordinary DVT. Oh no…It was an arterial groin clot along with several others and a “small” pulmonary embolism joined the party later.
The only way to diagnose DVTs then was with a test called a Venogram. This was performed by inserting an IV needle into a vein on the top of your foot. Then after enduring severe pain (as it always seemed the tech knew how much it didn’t hurt more than I did) the IV bag with the diagnostic dye would then be started, and LET THE FUN BEGIN!! The dye would begin finding its way through all those little blood ways, seeking out even the smallest of capillaries until WHAM!!! CLOT BLOCKED!! Now, if you were still laying down and calm when that occurred…I want your secret. At this point, tears are flowing, pain is searing, and the tech is telling you to lie still until we’re done. I still have scars on my left foot from having these done over the years.
That led to a hospital stay of a total of 19 days. It was now the beginning of a shared mother-daughter journey with the continuation of my mother’s and the beginning of mine.
Then, in 2011, the roles reversed when my son Andrew, then 22, suffered a stroke due to a massive Central Venous Thrombosis or CVT. The main vein that goes down the middle of the brain to from the stem over the top to the front of the forehead was 98% occluded.
So now it’s a shared mother-son journey and in its third generation.
Today, Andrew turns 25 years old and again I say to him the only one who can stop you is you and your dreams are only as small as you make them.
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