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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.
In the day to day, it's tough to remember just how fragile our lives are. When everything is going right, the wrong just seems so far away. I got a phone call at eight o'clock on Sunday morning from my family doctor. It's never good when your family doctor calls you at eight a.m. on a Sunday morning and he's like, go to the hospital right now. How do we find composure when faced with the reality of near death?
How do we keep the precipice of disaster as far from us as possible? I'm thankful to him. I believe he saved my life.
Every six minutes, somebody in America dies of a blood clot. 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 Lake.
I am the 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.
Most people create future plans for their life to come. They pack and prepare and finesse all of the beautiful ways they hope for their future to be. So when it comes to the stories we hear about loss and survival, how could you be ready for the hushed, insidious arrival of a blood clot? Our guest today is someone who came face to face with the terrifying reality of a complex clotting event. A news anchor, a father, and a husband.
It is my pleasure to welcome to the show today, the wonderful Chris Gailus.
name is Chris Gailus. For my professional work, I am a news anchor at Global BC Television in Vancouver, Canada. But the most important job I have is as husband to Jane and father to Will. I'm 58 years old, generally pretty healthy and active. And I was absolutely shocked by what happened to me in September and October of 2019.
So for me, this all started when I was going out for a morning run. There's a beautiful part of Vancouver down by the seawall, Kits Beach. It's a wonderful run. And I had been coming off what I would say was several months of sort of inactivity. I hadn't been that active and I wanted to get back to running and fitness and doing weights. I'd always played basketball. I'd always played some rugby and was...
very fit and active, but I'd had a period that was a bit of a long layoff. So I thought, I'll go down to Kitts Beach and I'll go for that easy 5K jog that I've done a hundred times. And that'll be a good way to get back into the fitness.
And so on the final, I'd say a hundred meters of it, I hadn't sprinted hard in a long time. So I was feeling good. had my tunes going and I just sprinted that last hundred yards and felt fantastic. And went home, had a shower, went to work. And about three or four hours later, I looked down at my leg. I felt like something's not right. And I looked down at my left ankle.
and it had ballooned up quite a bit. was quite swollen, so swollen in fact that I took a picture of it and I sent it to my wife Jane and I'm like, do you think in this photo my ankle looks swollen? And she got back to me saying, yeah, it doesn't look right, but will I sit? And I thought, okay, well, you know, I did go for pretty intense run and I ended it in kind of an intense sprint. So I don't know, maybe I pulled something or did something. Seemed weird though. So.
I got home that night and I iced it down and the swelling went down. took a couple of Tylenol and I was good to go. Well, about a week later, I was sitting at home, it was around eight o'clock at night and I all of a sudden got this terrible chill like you get when you're sick, like the flu or something is coming on and I just felt this chill and the shiver go through my body and I couldn't stop shaking. And so like, babe, I don't feel well. I think there's a bug going around. I knew I had.
a doctor's appointment in a couple of days with my family doctor. So I just went to bed and I fell asleep really quickly. But I woke up at about midnight with the inability to breathe. Like I was just gasping and I had this very intense sharp pain in the top back of my side. And I was like, my God, like this is so difficult. I actually woke Jane up going, I can't breathe. I don't know what's going on. And
And God bless her. She's a stiff upper lip Brit. She said, take a Tylenol. So I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll take a couple of Tylenol. And it was so uncomfortable that I just sort of fell asleep sitting up. And I woke up in the morning and the pain was gone and I had to go to work. So I was like, okay, well, I actually feel pretty good. So I'll go to work. And I went to work and I finished the day and I came home that night and I was sitting down and almost at exactly 24 hours later, same thing.
weird chills, shivers. I'm like, I feel it again. And I went back to bed and I woke up again with this stabbing pain in my side. You know, I didn't feel like the flu or anything like that. But the next night when the same thing happened, you know, I knew something was wrong and she's like, okay, tomorrow, like I should have gone right then to the emergency, right? Like I should have in that moment gone because something was serious. I didn't know it at the time, but.
Those were embolisms transiting into my lungs, right? So either one of those could have been fatal, I later learned. But on the second night, instead of going to the ER right away, I did the same thing. I popped a couple of Tylenol and I went to sleep again, sitting up. But I woke up in the morning and I went immediately to the emergency room at the nearest hospital to us. When I finally got in to see someone, the intake specialist who was a nurse,
asked me questions like, brings you in here? Okay, well two nights in a row this happened. Anything else weird about this? Well, you know, about five, six days ago, I had swelling in my lower leg on my left leg and then this happened a few days later. So he's writing all of this down, right, swollen left extremity, pain in the upper side, back to back nights of this like.
When you do the checklist about what a blood clot symptom is or what the blood clot symptoms are, these are the boxes you're ticking. I had no idea about that.
because before we had left for the hospital in the morning, we'd hit Dr. Google and gone like, okay, these are the pains I'm having. What could it be? And some of the things that came up were like, maybe you've got kidney stones or maybe it's just the severity of the pain and the location of the pain. Maybe it's a gallstone or something else. So it also never said blood clot. So that was never on my radar when I went to the ER. So I got checked in.
The ER doctor came to talk to me. I related all of the symptoms to her and she asked if I was stressed. I'm like, yeah, I'm stressed. Like I've had a week of weird physical things happening to me. You know, I'm stressed at work. I work in a high pressure job. The news business can be that way and yeah. And she's like, you need to rest and discharged me. Now I did get blood work done.
I think she was maybe she had some preconceived notion that I was having some kind of heart issue or something. So whatever blood tests they did, they did not do the D-dimer blood clot test. Even though I had these classic symptoms of a blood clot, which is one of the big messages I like to get out to people to advocate for your own health because sometimes they don't know and it seemed like this ER doctor, she did not.
recognize the classical symptoms of a blood clot. So I never got the D-dimer blood clot test. I went home, I would advocate and I have been advocating for it to absolutely be standard procedure when somebody comes in with swollen lower extremity, pain in the side, do the D-dimer test. It's like you're pulling blood anyway, let's do that one and maybe save some lives. I was lucky I dodged a bullet. I know a lot of other people do.
But there's a lot of people who don't and that blood test can be a simple indicator. So I never got it. I went home and I mentioned earlier that I had that following week had the checkup and he's like, how you been? I'm like, weird, you know, this is what happened to me. And he looked like he just went ash and he's like, did they did they do the D dimer test? And I don't even know what that is. He's like, take this requisition to the lab right now.
and get the D-dimer test.
I'm thankful to him. I believe he saved my life.
So that's what I did. Went to the lab, get the D-dimer test. And I didn't think anything about it until two days later when the lab results came in and I got a phone call at eight o'clock on Sunday morning from my family doctor. It's never good when your family doctor calls you at eight a.m. on a Sunday morning and he's like, go to the hospital right now. We need to run a check on whether you have embolisms in your lungs.
because of the symptoms that I had described earlier. And so I went immediately to VGH, a different hospital this time, and they ran the test. It turns out, here's another complication to figure out what was going on with my body. I'm allergic to contrast dye, so I couldn't get like a normal MRI or ultrasound or whatever procedure it was that they were going to do to check my lungs because I'm allergic to that dye, which we had figured out a few years before for another procedure I had.
So I had to do the whole nuclear medicine thing and get a little isotope of technetium put in my blood. And they ran a test, sort of an older school test because of that. And they found out that I had had two embolisms that had entered my lungs, transited my heart, and thankfully got through my heart without causing a jammer. And so I began at that moment, blood thinning medication. I've been on it ever since. I take five milligrams two times a day.
And I've been taking it ever since, but I'm so grateful to Dr. Jeffrey Edwards for knowing the signs of a blood clot, making sure I got the correct D-dimer test, and then following up with making sure I got in to check to see what was going on with my lungs. And now it's just sort of managing life on blood thinners, which isn't that difficult. Once they knew that I had the blood clot, I found out that I had this
eight centimeter blockage behind my left knee. So at some point between when I had the swelling in the lower leg and when the first onset of the pain in my side arrived, which would have been five or six days, I think at some point in that period a piece of that clot dislodged from behind my knee and ended up in my lungs and then it must have happened almost 24 hours.
later because the same thing happened and the nuclear medicine, the nuclear imaging that they did detected two areas in my lungs where the embolism had taken root. So the complicating factor in all of this is I was supposed to be flying to Tokyo in a few days to go to the Rugby World Cup with my family and friends. We had all booked this. We'd planned this for four years, you know, ever since we were in England for Rugby World Cup in England.
And because of the delays in getting on the blood thinners, I was unable to fly. know, my family got on the plane and went to Tokyo with our friends and I stayed behind because I couldn't fly. And I finally met them in Hawaii sort of for a step down trip on the way back when I was able to fly. Nice to be able to get away, but you know, had I been diagnosed in the right way, there wouldn't have been nearly as much disruption in our personal lives.
It was so great, such a relief for my family. They left for Japan before really fully understanding what the long-term prognosis for me was. Of course, I encouraged them to go because it's a once-in-a-lifetime trip and that I would meet them in Hawaii. But what a relief to see them in Hawaii.
I don't think I really realized how close I came to death because one in four embolisms in the literature I got from the deep vein thrombosis clinic, which I was referred to after diagnosis, showed one in four is fatal. And I had two back to back. The math of that really struck me when I was waiting to see Dr. Romani at the thrombosis clinic to become part of this blood thinning trial.
That was when it really hit me when I saw what the potential outcome of undiagnosed DVT slash embolism can be. It was unfathomable to think that there I was sitting upright in my bed. That could have been my last night on earth. And it wasn't until I really got into the literature at the thrombosis clinic that I realized, wow, that's way closer at the age of 40.
way closer to death than I want to be at this age. I've got a son, you know, who was eight years old at the time. I'm, you know, like I say, loving husband. I'm a family man, you know, and when you realize, boy, I could have gone cold that night, it's a real wake up call. And it's part of the reason that I've tried to become an advocate for this so that other people can learn.
from my mistakes because, well, first of all, the minute I had this unusual swelling in my lower left leg, should have gone to the hospital right now. Like I know that now, and that's what I tell people. It took me almost two weeks with even some, know, emergency room help to figure it out. And it wasn't until my family doctor demanded the D-dimer test that we really nailed it.
There's a male element to it too, I'm sure. mean, everybody is stoic in their own way, I'm sure, but part of it is, you want to be tough. You don't want to cause a fuss. You know, it's difficult to disrupt the family at midnight when you wake up in pain and you got to, you know, I don't want Jane to worry. I don't want my son to worry, you know, all of those things, but would have been way worse had I gone cold in the night and they woke up with that to deal with. So obviously.
take care of yourself, get to the hospital, you make sure that all of those, you relate all of those symptoms and make sure that if they aren't listening or there's kind of a, okay, well, maybe you just need to chill out. No, you need the D-dimer blood test. You need them to check on the reality of the possibility that you could be experiencing a blood clot because that's how you prevent death is making sure that you get on the blood thinners.
that quick. Knowing the risk factors and symptoms of a blood clot is a surefire way to mitigating the needless loss from a clotting event. When we know the signs, symptoms and potential elevated causes, we arm ourselves with the power of knowledge. Between factor five Leiden and traumatic physical injury to hormonal birth control and genetic makeup, knowing what to watch out for could be the difference between a life saved and a life lost.
You made me cry. I'm going to blame you. We share some things in common, not just blood clots, but I too did not receive a D-dimer. I too did not receive an ultrasound. And I too ended up in the ICU bilateral pulmonary embolism. So I'm curious to know, did anxiety for you become worse?
after you started reading about this and learning about the statistics around blood clots because it got worse for me, much worse after I had my blood clot. And the more information I got, the worse it became. What happened for me after when I realized how close I came to a fatal episode and how close I came to death, it took me a long time to trust my body again. And as a guy who's always been active and a guy who
likes to exercise, I fell into a kind of a funk about trusting that my body was going to be there for me when I needed it and that pushing it like I had that day when the clot first appeared. Now, mine is considered an unprovoked blood clot. There was no injury. There was no reason for me to have this.
blood clot behind my left knee, I hadn't had surgery, I hadn't been on a long flight, I hadn't like, there was nothing. It may simply be genetic. So yes, I got on blood thinners right away, but it took me a long time to feel like I was myself again, and that I could trust my body again, and that I had the enthusiasm to work out again at the rate that I wanted to. And that almost became this, I don't know,
like a snowball effect, because I would be like, you know, I don't feel good enough to kind of push it the way that I should. So my fitness started falling off and on my fitness started falling off. I felt like I couldn't push it to get back to where I was. And I just got in this cycle of, you know, depression and time heals all wounds. And I did have some therapy sessions in there too. And I'm thankful for that. We're getting back to first of all, believing in the medicine.
believing that the care that I was under from Dr. Romani and at the thrombosis clinic and my family doctor, Dr. Edwards, just getting back to believing in the science, believing in the medicine and slowly crawling out of that hole. But that I would say was the big, maybe not so much anxiety as depression and concern about whether I was ever going to be my old self again. And I feel like I'm back.
I'm glad you're back. And I think these are really normal things that we as patients experience. I too am unprovoked. So we are apparently lifelong members of this anticoagulant club. Yeah. I never wanted to join, but here we are. Here we are together. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you is, once you start to really immerse yourself it, you're an advocate to raise awareness now. You're sharing your story, which is so incredibly important.
But when you take a step back, do you ask yourself, why don't they know more about this? Somebody said to you, you need to rest. Well, boy, she almost gave you rest forever. And she should have known this. And why there's such, it's the luck of the draw to a certain extent. You get somebody who knows, you get somebody who doesn't know, and it's a life or death outcome. Did you take a step back and go,
Why didn't she know? Why don't more of them know? This is so common. So many people get this. We were talking earlier about the fact that once you start talking about it, you always meet people that have experienced it. And so what's wrong? What's going on? How do we change this trajectory? Well, I mean, first of all, me appearing on your podcast is a big part of it for me. Writing that article was a big part of it for me.
But if I have any regret through all of this, Leslie, it's that I didn't follow up with St. Joseph's Hospital after my experience because I was just trying to survive, I felt, at that moment. And I don't know, maybe that doctor was having a bad day, maybe, you know, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I realize now, I should have followed up.
with the customer feedback protocol that there is at the hospital I went to where, look, this was the diagnosis and I could have died very easily. And I came in here like, let's look at the file. Like you'll see, I pointed out all of the symptoms, classic blood clot symptoms. So the one regret I have is that I didn't actively follow up with the hospital. I suppose it's not too late to do that and I've pushed it off.
not wanting to be seen as somebody who was a troublemaker or whatever, but we need to be confident enough in understanding the symptoms of blood clots. So when you go in there, you can be an advocate for yourself. You can speak up about it. Had I known more, I would have done that and it would have been, you know, a much better outcome for me in terms of being, you know.
not having to deal with the realities of this blood clot and not being able to fly and near death and all of that. Had I known more, I could have advocated for myself, got the D-dimer test and had this diagnosed a lot earlier. So, you know, I guess just doing what we're doing and trying to publicize our own stories, to be vulnerable about our own stories is the best way that I know how. You know, I'm on the air here in Vancouver.
Every year that rolls around, I repost my write-up about it so that other people can learn about it. And it's just being active. I think the way you are, the way I am, and the way a lot of people associated with this podcast have been to just get the information out there because, as you say, knowledge is power. really is. you know, we have, just listening to your story, we have so many similarities, except for the six foot five part.
I'm not, I'm not, drop it down a foot or so and, and you what, that's a demonstration. can happen to Absolutely. It can happen to anybody. female, tall, not tall, does not matter. It does not discriminate. It will come for anybody. And, that's we also need to be communicating is that anybody can get this and it is deadly and it is dangerous and sharing these stories.
is critically important to raising awareness. You know, it's not too late. I did the same thing as you. I did not go back to the hospital and say, hey, you misdiagnosed me. You gave me the wrong protocol. I couldn't even walk by the hospital for a couple of years where I was initially treated because I was so traumatized by it. feel that. I feel that. was every time I drive by and it's like I have to drive by St. Joseph's to get home from work almost every day. I feel that.
I was angry. Me too. that was one of the other things that, you know, I was thinking, listening to you share your story is I personally went from what, like what is happening to, my God, I'm terrified and I could have died to, hey, I'm now angry and I need to do something about this. And it sounds like he went down a parallel path. So
Again, just very thankful that you're willing to come on here and share your story. And also for men in particular, like National Blood Clot Alliance, we have so many people that come to us and I feel like women are a little bit better about sharing the mental health implication of this and you being vulnerable is a beautiful thing to say. I know it was hard for you, but it's really a beautiful thing to say because this will save lives and humanize blood clots.
You know, one of the other things that's hard, I think, is, people get a disease or a disorder and you can see it on them, but with blood clots, you can't. So, hey, you look great, but your body has failed you. And you talked about that with exercising. And that's also a tricky thing because you look normal, but you certainly don't feel normal. Yeah, that's right. It's one of those sort of hidden afflictions, right? And you can be dealing with all of the mental...
weight of what you have just survived and a form of grief that you have to wrestle with over the fact that, okay, well, despite all of these things that you're doing in your life that you think are going to extend it and in your or prevent you from falling, there are things going on in our bodies that we can't control. And you have to wrestle with that emotionally and mentally that you can't be this
untouchable person that maybe you felt like you were and that that person is is now is gone. But I'm better, right? Like I'm better because I feel like I'm back to health and using this experience to help. you are March is Blood Clot Awareness Month and I was
like a commitment from you today that you are gonna help us raise big time awareness in March for Blood Cloud Awareness Month. The more people that we have supporting awareness, the more people we'll reach and the more people we'll save. And so I'd like you to join us and come on board and be part of the Blood Cloud Awareness Team. I promise you, I will do everything I can to help. Chris, I wanna thank you for joining us today on Taking a Breath. Your story has been amazing to listen to.
I'm honored to meet you and I'm really looking forward to working with you to continue to raise awareness. And we can't thank you enough for being here today and just being vulnerable. thank you so much, Leslie. It is so good to share my story and to know that there's this platform that is going to enlighten hopefully thousands of other people to recognize the symptoms of a blood clot. And I know that that's going to save lives. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to.
speak to you today and to share a little, you and I are like blood clot brothers and sisters, what we've lived through here. I'm so grateful. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Taking a Breath. We want to thank Chris for joining us today and sharing his incredible story. As always, thank you to the exquisite Dr. Carolyn Cromwell for her 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, please 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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