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Taking a Breath: A Stop the Clot Podcast is a show committed to shining a light on the dangers of blood clots and breathing life into The National Blood Clot Alliance’s mission of pushing these preventable killers to the forefront of public discourse. We will hear the stories of notable blood clot survivors like Olympic medalists Katie Hoff Anderson & Tatyana McFadden, among others, as well as the expertise of medical professionals to provide connection, empathy and resources to listeners like you. At Stop the Clot we know the patient because we are the patient. Journey through this miraculous series with hosts and blood clot survivors Leslie Lake and Todd Robertson as they, with the help of listeners like you, change the way we think about blood clots. Join us as we collectively stop the clot.
The National Blood Clot Alliance (NBCA) is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, voluntary health organization dedicated to advancing the prevention, early diagnosis and successful treatment of life-threatening blood clots such as deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.
It feels good to laugh. Through the lowest lows and the terror associated with the unknown, laughter reminds us that we're still capable of joy even when it seems the furthest away. So after class, he said, hey, are you all right? And I said, I feel like I pulled my calf muscle. And he said, you really should have it checked out because it could be a DVT. Even in our most joyous and present states, we are not exempt from the experience of a life altering medical event.
Even when we're feeling good, blood clots do not care. The next morning, I woke up, my husband went to work, and my kiddo, my stepson went off to school. And I woke up in our kitchen, passed out between the stove and the doorway to our bathroom.
Every six minutes, somebody in America dies of a blood clot. Isn't it time people started to pay attention? We're here to change that statistic. Welcome to Taking a Breath, a Stop the Clot podcast. An award-winning podcast dedicated to bringing awareness of the dangers of blood clots from the clotting disorders community to the world. With the help of many notable blood clot survivors, we are here to give you the knowledge and the skills you need to prevent this silent killer.
My name is Leslie Legge. I am the volunteer president of the National Blood Clot Alliance and I am a blood clot survivor. And my name is Todd Robertson. I am the patient engagement liaison for the National Blood Clot Alliance and I am a seven-time blood clot survivor. And we're here to stop the clot.
In hindsight, some things can feel like they happen serendipitously. Being in the right place at just the right time, being unexpectedly prepared in the right moment, or even meeting the right person who just may save your life. Our guest today is somebody who just so happened to hear the right life-saving thing at exactly the right time. As a comedian, our guest today is in the business of joy, even through the tremendous difficulty and fear associated with a clotting event.
Our guest finds her joy wherever there's a glimpse. Please join me in welcoming the truly wonderful Kelly McFarland. Yeah, so I'm Kelly McFarland. I'm a comedian. It's my full-time job is bringing joy to the masses through laughter. And I'm a blood clot survivor. That's it. That's all I want people to know. No, I want them to know so much more.
My blood clot event happened in 2018 and I want to say I was in really good health. I just lost some weight. I was feeling good. In early 2018 I got a bad, bad...
vertigo. This is in the first half of the year and so I'm not sure if they're related or not to my blood clot event. I stand firm that the two are related. I am not a doctor so don't follow my advice at all. However, it's just an odd sense of timing. So I had already had a rough start to 2018. I was experiencing this non-stop vertigo, nausea. It felt like I was on a boat almost most of the time. Had to go through a
of testing for that MRI scans and then it just kind of dissipated which was great. Well about a month later I was teaching improv. I was teaching an improv class and woke up in the morning and my calf was hurting and I thought wow that's weird I have not worked out what happened and progressively it just started feeling worse and worse and worse. In my class was a doctor actually a physician
and he noticed I was limping around. So after class he said, hey, are you all right? And I said, I feel like I pulled my calf muscle. And he said, well, show me. And I said, right here. And I did not point to my calf. I pointed like my whole, at this point, my whole like from the knee down was hurting. And he said, can you walk on it? And I said, well, I mean, barely. And he said, you really should have it checked out because it could be a DVT. And I said, well, I don't know about that.
don't smoke, I'm not on birth control, like all the things that you say when you're in denial about a physical thing that's happening to you. So he said, you know, do me a solid. I really feel like you should just go to the urgent care. You don't have to go to ER, but I would go to urgent care. And that set it off this like 48 hour span, I think of just like mayhem is what it feels like. I went in, they said it sounds like a DVT. Let's have you get a scan.
they had me drive to another location. They did an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a DVT. They put me on blood thinners. I was a little freaked out and I thought, well, I'm going to be okay. I'm on blood thinners. I went home and then that evening I felt a little off and I thought it was probably just anxiety from the whole event. Cause it just feels weird when something's in your body and you're like, so it can just shoot up and get me. Like that's terrifying. The next morning,
I woke up, my husband went to work and my kiddo, my stepson went off to school and I woke up in our kitchen, passed out between the stove and the doorway to our bathroom. The last thing I remember was that I was gonna go in and like wash my face and then that was kind of it. I woke up, my head hurt, I had hit my head on the countertop and I just felt weird. Made it to the couch, called my husband.
Why would I call 911? That's crazy. So I called my husband. He immediately said, I'm going to come home, stay put, please don't try to walk around, stay seated and call the urgent care doctor. We go through this whole thing and come to find out they did a CT scan.
and they're showing a pulmonary embolism in my lung. She was real little, she was just a little one, but she was in there. So this wasn't the first event and they sent me directly to the ER. And when I got to the ER, this is where things changed for me because I've never had this much pushback.
about what's actually physically happening to me. I kept telling them, I had a DVT. What do you mean you had a DVT? I was like, do you not know what that like, are you a doctor? And I it was very frustrating for me because I didn't understand why I had to keep telling the story. And I even had the scan with me. They're like, what am I supposed to do with that? Because it's an ER. So they're just and I'm like, upright and my eyes are wide open and I'm trying to explain. they said,
you're on a blood thinner, there's not much more we can do." And they just sent me home. And so I went home and then I had an appointment with my hematologist, my doctor, and she actually was just like a game changer for me. So now I'm perpetually on a blood thinner and trying to keep my weight down and, you know, stay in check.
I say I remember, you know, I was going to wash my face and brush my teeth. I do remember waking up and saying goodbye to my husband and the kiddo. And then I remember feeling like a little off, but I was on this new medication. I was on this blood thinner. So was like, I don't know, maybe this is just normal. And I went into the, into our bathroom and I do remember I got my toothbrush out and I was like, I kind of feel like I'm going to pass out.
bubbly, right? Now it's like, I remember thinking I'm going to pass out. Then I remember thinking I've got to get back to the bedroom. That was my thought. And then I woke up in the kitchen. So I think I fell off. Something felt weird in my person. And what I should have done is called 911 and said, Hey, I had a DVT yesterday. I was in the emergency room. I feel like I'm going to pass out. Can you send help? And I feel like we're just so programmed
to not listen to our common sense and be like, I'll be fine. I'll just keep going. It's fine. Don't do that. Never do that.
First and foremost, I think that our medical system is really understaffed because my takeaway, this was in end of 2018, it was in November of 2018. So I've had a lot of time to reflect on it. And my thought is like, I remember going into the ER and there were patients in the hallways. So it was really busy and crowded. And I remember feeling sympathetic towards the staff and the physicians and the nurses and everybody. And I also remember.
An eye roll from the doctor who saw me. I also remember when I said they found a small pulmonary embolism in my lung. Eye roll again. Well, I doubt that because you'd be dead.
Yeah, and I remember when they said that I like kind of did puff up a little bit I didn't lose my cool because I was scared However, I was like what i'm telling you is I have a scan here of what they found Do you want to see it? I don't know what you want me to do with that And honestly, you're on a blood thinner go home and relax I remember going home and thinking if I don't find a doctor who can explain this to me i'm gonna go crazy because that is something that
that don't think we talk about enough is that medical events is that science, right? And it is anxiety inducing. causes fear. It causes I didn't want to leave my house. I didn't want to be alone. I made my husband stay home for two days when he did go to work. He left in the morning and I was so brave. And then I just sobbed because I was like, well, what if it happens again? What if no one's helping me? So I'm supposed to just
fingers crossed. It's not a healthy way to proceed and I can't say enough good things about my doctor who helped me feel like I wasn't losing it. You feel like you're losing it.
I remember sitting at the appointment with my hematologist and saying, did I have a pulmonary embolism? Did I make that up? Because there's a piece here that I'm not referencing that I should. I reached out to my primary care physician at the time, which I'm here to report no longer with that primary care. Haven't been since this happened. And he was angry with me for going to the urgent care. He's angry about it. He's like, well, you should have called him,
appointment with our office and I said, it's urgent care for a reason. I went to urgent care and I tried to explain there's a doctor in my improv class I'm teaching and he was very frustrated that I even went to urgent care. He's like a lot of times, you know, it's an urgent care. They're in and out. I was like, not this one. They had a huge CT machine. went in it and he's like, well, so there's this constant feeling of being an advocate for yourself. And when I met my hematologist, I just felt like,
She just looked me in the eyes and said this is what happened to you. Do I know if this PE would have killed you? I have no idea. Do I know if it is is it a piece of your dbt? I don't know. I don't know because now we're a week and a half two weeks out. What I can tell you is we're going to start treating you right now for future and that was so satisfying to hear because you do kind of move through the world with this fear.
that wins the next one coming. And even now, it's funny we're doing this recording today because I was at the doctor's office this morning and I mentioned it to my primary that I have now. just said, I stay on this blood thinner? And she was like, a hundred percent. We're going to have you on that for as long as the team thinks you should be on it. You're staying on it and wear your medical ID bracelet and, you know, make sure you tell people if you're going to be a daredevil, which I know you're not. so
It makes you feel so much better when you feel like someone's hearing you and you feel like you're being taken care of to the best of everyone's ability. And I'm so thankful for that every day. I lost my mom four years ago and she had a brain bleed and she also was on a blood thinner and she had blood clots and or she would get blood clots, DVT. I don't think she ever had a diagnosed PE, but she, you know, she's not here anymore.
definitely a medical event. We lost her and I think about that and I think sometimes I want to understand more about it. I want to understand why did it happen and is it going to happen again and I want to know those things and we never can tell. So I think the most important thing is I really try to listen to my body and I just I don't ignore symptoms. don't ignore things and I have no embarrassment when it comes to
in a doctor's office and telling them what I'm feeling and what I think because I'd rather walk out and I think the doctor would rather have you walk out too than oh well she just never called or she never went in or it's better to be safe than sorry and if you're not going to do it for you do it for the people in your life that care and love you and I think the more we can talk about it the better. The only thing that's really changed for me is that I wore a medical ID bracelet for a long
I was really good about it. And then somehow, I don't know, like I stopped wearing it a few years ago and I work on cruise ships a lot. So I perform on cruise ships and so I'll be gone and I'm by myself, foreign countries, by myself. I'm learning Spanish on Duolingo, but I'm not fluent by any means. so English is my primary language and that is not our world's language. I don't care what anyone tells you. It's many people speak many different languages. And so not having the ID brace
on is not it's like a non-negotiable. I heard a horrible story about someone who was on a ship and they slipped. They slipped which is so easy to slip and the most fit person will slip if the floor is slippery and you don't expect it. So they slipped and they hit their head and they unfortunately did not survive and I came home and told my husband and he said you need to wear your bracelet every single day. It's not even
a thing anymore. You need be wearing something. So now I have like several and they're very cute and I put them on to coordinate with my outfits because I just I don't I owe it to him. I owe it to the people around me and also you could slip and fall anywhere. I live in the northeast. I know you are in the warmth but I'm in where everything is icy. It's slippery everywhere here. You could fall. mean yeah slipping and falling is a thing.
When it comes to who is most affected by blood clots, we know that there are so many potential contributing factors. Between age, genetic predispositions, medication side effects, or even proximity to a physically traumatic event, there are so many potential reasons as to why these things happen. What does that discrepancy look like when talking about the difference between men and women?
Here to discuss gender as a contributing factor to clotting events, this is Dr. Jeffrey Klein. Well, the death rate is purely because of recurrence rate. If you plot the number of recurrences across 10 years between men and women, it's about double in men compared to women. And what underlies that, whether it's biology, testosterone, or just being hard-headed and not taking your pill, take your pill, don't not take your pill, is
really not completely worked out, but recurrence rate is the driving force of the under the why or multiple whys behind that recurrence rate are not completely known.
I happen to know Kelly's doctor, which I don't think she'll mind if we say her name, which is Dr. Rachel Rosofsky. And she's at Mass General in Boston. She's amazing. I wish everybody had a doctor like this because she truly is a breed apart from so many. But I also had my blood clot in 2018 and was dealing with all the things that Kelly was talking about, including the dizziness, which
Remember having this conversation? Yes. I'll never forget it. Nobody would take me seriously talking about this. then Kelly's like, I have this really weird thing happening. I was like, oh my God. And what has happened over the years is I've seen like more people in our patient group, women kind of like in a certain age group that mentioned this as a real thing that they experience.
some kind of dizziness slash vertigo. And the phrase that I used to use, and I was the only one who ever used this phrase until I met Kelly, I feel like I'm on a boat and it's this weird feeling and it's got to be related to either the anticoagulant or something with a blood clot or a combination thereof. But nobody would take this seriously until I met Rachel and she was like, huh, that's interesting. Cause Kelly talks about this too. And it wasn't
Oh no, it's stress. It's in your head. It's this, it's that. You're an idiot. It was, huh, that's interesting. And the other thing was I was really struggling with the mental health side of things. And Kelly was like, yeah, this has been like a mental health journey here after you have the blood clot. And I remember Rachel and I, because she was on our medical and scientific advisory board at the time, having this conversation. And I was like,
think there's a lot of people out there that are dealing with this. And I was like, why don't we survey our group, our patient group, and see what the response rate is? And so we got together and we created this survey. don't know, Kelly, did you ever take that? Yes. So it was called the Clued Survey. And it was a really long survey that we posed to the patients about their experience with mental health, PTSD, et cetera, related to their blood clot experience.
I'll never forget this. In 24 hours, we had 650 patients respond to the survey. We had 3,300 patients take this. We finally had to turn it off because there were so many respondents to this and go through it. And it took like a half an hour to actually do this. But it was the first time there was ever a response rate by patients saying, it's more than just the acute setting. There's so much more that goes into it. And over time, I it's been, I'm coming up on eight years in June.
Kelly's coming up on eight years, I'd like to think I'm better, but all it takes is one little twinge, one weird feeling, one fall to put you right back to where you started eight years ago. And this survey that we worked on with Rachel has really been used around the world by clinicians so that they start to actually think about, this is an issue. We need to be treating the whole patient, not just a piece of the patient.
not just their leg, not just their lungs, but really the whole patient needs to be addressed. So Kelly was a big catalyst for making that happen because it's one of those things where you realize you're not alone. So Kelly, thank you. I'm so glad I met you then because we did talk about that. was like, well, we laughed a lot in that call that we had with each other. But I was just like, I feel like I'm on a boat. And you were like, I feel like I'm on a boat. Oh God, I'm on the same boat.
I'm like, literally, feel like I'm the mermaid on the front of a ship, just being like, okay, here we go. And you're absolutely right, Leslie, because the other day I had a little vertigo and I probably just got up too quick or something. And it does, I snapped right back into it. I was like, I've got to get to the couch. So dramatic is what I would say if my husband was doing it. And then that's when I have to take a reality check and be like, no, no, no, no, no. When someone reacts that way to something
medically that's happening to them, you need to practice some patience and give some grace because they're tying that back to something that's happened to them before. Kelly, you were instrumental in making this all happen. And then my brain is also saying, boy, you and Kelly did really stupid things when you first got your blood clot because I too went home and called my boyfriend as opposed to calling 911 and saying, hey, I can't breathe. I was like,
want to go to the hospital. I can't breathe. Let me call him instead like he's going to be able to do anything about it. now I would like in a million years that I would never do that. That makes me wonder if I'm secretly passive aggressive where I'm like, I'm terrified. So should my partner in love and life. Let me call him at work and tell him that I think I'm dying. I should probably start there. That makes sense. mean, gosh. Yeah.
In my case, Binds a PhD, but wrong kind of doctor. You want the one that can actually diagnose. Fair enough. I had the wrong one. The other thing to share with you, in 2020, COVID hits. National Blood Claw Alliance is a nonprofit. We host events in person. And that was so out the window as of March of 2020. And we were like, what are we going to do?
Kelly McFarland comes riding into the rescue. And she's like, hey, we'll do a virtual comedy show. And I was like, what? And she's like, yeah, we'll do a virtual comedy show. Do you remember that? do remember that. my God. It was a fundraiser. It was an event. People showed up online. She brought in other comedians. It was amazing. Like everybody had a blast. It was amazing. And it was the power of people who had been impacted by this coming together, because Rachel was involved. She got on.
I think she spoke actually. yeah, interviewed her. Yeah. About blood clots and you did your thing and you had a bunch of people get on and they did their thing and it was a really cool thing to organize. But it was the power of people who've been impacted by blood clots coming together during a period of crisis because their traditional way of communicating with the public had gone out the door because of COVID. And it really launched a new way post-COVID of how we communicate with people. So here we are in the podcast.
But digital communication, how we actually share information, interface with people, that has been a springboard to us being able to reach so many more people. So again, here you are, crappy situation that you went through, both of us. But we've actually done some pretty cool stuff that has changed the trajectory for people. think that's so important too. It's just connection and you want everyone to know.
And what a great way to do that when you can communicate through podcast or online or just being able to have a further reach than you normally would by going to a support group, which there's nothing wrong with that. It's just this is more accessible for the person who can't get there. And for me, you you try to normalize after a certain amount of time. I didn't do a lot of laughing after my blood clot. And so introducing humor back into my life was so important also. So.
Follow you on TikTok. Don't forget to follow, like and subscribe. And I do. I love it. It's so good. Nothing replaces storytelling. Listening to people's stories, talking about how they got the blood clot, their signs, their symptoms, how they were treated. You and I both experienced the brush off, I call it. And we were very fortunate to fire those people and find ourselves.
really great doctors that support our journey. I remember asking
call her Dr. Rachel because I could never say her name correctly on the back end. So I always call her Dr. Rachel. I always butcher it like my tongue's too big for my mouth. I'm like Dr. Rizka. Dr. Rachel, I was wondering. So I remember asking her why did this happen to me? And do you know how refreshing it is to have someone as knowledgeable and as brilliant as Dr. Rachel? Say her last name, Leslie.
I can say it if I really concentrate. Dr. Rosovsky, look me in the eyes and say, I'm not, I'm honestly telling you, I don't really know. I don't know. I'm not sure what's causing yours and that's okay. We're going to treat you anyway. And that was kind of freeing actually.
Kelly, thank you for joining us today on Taking a Breath. You have taken a difficult situation and voice to help so many people and we thank you for that because we know that your story will save lives. While this is never a funny situation, you're a funny person and I love spending time with you so we got to get you back on the show again.
Likewise, thank you for having me. And if people want a laugh, they can always look me up. It's Kelly MacFarland. And if you have any questions about your own blood clot journey and you want to ask me anything, I'm always open to that. So thanks. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us on another episode of Taking a Breath. We want to thank Kelly for sharing her story with us today. A special thank you to Dr. Jeffrey Klein for his insight and expertise. For more information on risk prevention and community, please visit StopTheClaw.org. And if you wish to aid in our efforts of blood clot awareness, consider donating to our cause at StopTheClaw.org forward slash donate.
We know the patient because we are the patient. Together with listeners like you, we can collectively stop the clot. For more information, visit stoptheclot.org.
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