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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.
A Blood clot doesn't wait for the right time. It simply strikes and leaves you with the residue of inspecting the why and the how. It was actually my wife that told me to go straight to the hospital. I called my team and said this is the feelings I'm having, and they were thinking, nah, it's maybe just need rest. Even as an athlete at the top of your game, with the most precise and structured physical health regime, a clotting event can still find its way to you.
The doctor when he had the results in his hand and looking at me he was just like, How does this make sense? Like this is not for a person that looks like you, that's your age, with a scan full of clots all through your lungs.
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 Lake. 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.
Blood clots defy expectation. Yes, there are risk factors that we key into and emphasize for those who are more likely to experience a clotting event. But that does not account for every person who has gone through this harrowing journey. Our guest today is someone who lies outside of the bounds of expectation. As a record-breaking champion cyclist and unparalleled athlete, our guest is somebody who knows the meaning of diligence and fortitude. In conversation with Todd,
Please join me in welcoming an athletic hero. This is Michael Matthews.
You know, just a little bit of background on me. I'm very much an amateur cyclist at 62. As a matter of fact, I didn't start riding bikes until after I suffered my first blood clot. It was like what opened the door for me both mentally and physically to recover. And I use that as kind of a platform. I I know that I'm overbiked and under skilled, but but there's nothing puts a smile on my face from ear to ear than just being out on one of my bikes and to have a professional
Cyclist like you who's made such a huge impact in the cycling community and now suffering a blood clot, I think this is a really huge platform for you and for us. And I I can't wait to share this with everybody. But I I do run the patient support group for the National Blood Clot Alliance. And I use cycling as a tool to get people outside saying, Don't be afraid. Live your life. So I love cycling and I'm so glad you're here, but I want this focus to be on you.
And I want people to know who you are. So I'd really like to, and I think we'll get through this in pretty good time. I'd really like to start at the beginning just to paint a picture about your life before the blood clot happened. Okay, we'll get to that in a minute, but before the contracts and the races and the cameras and the bright lights, who were you? Where did you grow up? If you can tell us what kind of a kid you were, and how did the bicycle even enter the picture in your life? Yeah, well I'm from Australia.
Yeah, I was basically probably not the best kid at school. I was probably a bit naughty, but really hanging out with the wrong people, but yeah, getting dragged in the wrong direction a little bit. But I was really good at sport. Every sport that I did, I was very talented at. And yeah, basically grew up riding bikes my whole life, whether it was BMX, motocross, downhill, every single type of thing you could do with a bike, I was doing and yeah, I was, like I said before, yeah, getting
When I was getting a bit older as a teenager, getting dragged in a little bit the wrong direction. And my my sports teacher at school actually saw this article in the newspaper for talented kids at schools in in Canberra, where I'm from in Australia. So yeah, he said, I would love to put your name forward for this talented kids program to see what sport you'd be best at. They do different testing to see what different kids would they could put them in a certain direction to what
they could do in a professional sport. And we did all different types of studies of my body and they came back with either rowing or cycling. So quite a strange way to get into the sport. But at that time I was doing motocross, racing motocross. So I had some injuries at the time and yeah, they said, Would you be interested in rowing or cycling? I said, well, cycling, I mean, it's something that I can do with motocross. So maybe they can link up a little bit. And yeah, from then I think
I was basically riding my bike for I think seven months and I already won Australian national title under s under seventeen. So they were pretty right about that, I guess. and I'm still thankful to this day to my sports teacher at school that yeah, created this pathway for me not being the best kid at school, like I said before, that's yeah, made it out and I am where I am now, because of that opportunity that my sports teacher gave me and the Australian Institute of Sport.
So you were competitive right out of the gate, weren't you? Pretty much. I just I loved the freedom of of riding my bike. I loved just being able to get on my bike every morning and just yeah, explore. I mean, I didn't really need a certain program or anything like that. I just loved to to be out there with my friends and just riding bikes and meeting new people, which was always really cool. And yeah, I think that at a young age, that freedom is is magic.
You mentioned a coach was very influential. There was a moment right early on where you thought you could really do this, right? You could turn this into a career. This could really be your life. I mean, I think you you pretty much said that, but you really started off in a high gear. You were just going for it. Did your family support you and and they were right there by your side and thinking, Hey, yep, this is what he needs to do?
Yeah, massively. I mean, we didn't have any background with cycling and it's more like a a European sport, I would say, especially back then. Now it's much bigger in Australia, obviously. But yeah, we didn't really understand the sport at all. We didn't really know the pathways to making it a real job, let's say, or a real profession. So we just basically enjoyed the journey. I mean, we were just having fun. We got a proper coach pretty much straight away as soon as I started,
getting better at the sport and really enjoying the sport. I think I got my first coach just before I won that Australian title. And from then on it just went super fast. I was already a world tour rider at before the age of twenty. So it all went super quick from there. And I think at at that age, back then, it was not normal to be a world tour rider under the age of twenty. Okay. Now it's getting more more normal because the scouting and everything and the way cycling is going like football these days, kids are coming in earlier and earlier.
Already when I was eighteen, they already wanted to take me to the world tour, but my coach at the time said, Do you need more time just to develop as a person, as a rider, after I won the world championships, then they let me go to the world tour. Let's fast forward into the pro years. When you look back, besides that first race that you won and you won so early on, were there other races that really shaped you? Any races after that that were very important in the progression of what you were doing?
And not just the wins, but the losses too, right? The setbacks, the disappointments. Yeah. I mean, I don't think there was necessarily a race or a setback. It was more just enjoying because I had such a group of friends that was just riding together. We would meet every morning at five o'clock for the bunch rides. It was more just like I felt so free because of the life I was living before this opportunity got given. It was yeah, pretty negative. I mean,
My family at home was amazing, but the school and the people I was hanging out with were not very good for me. So I was sort of getting dragged that direction. And then when this came up, it was just like it felt like a a second chance for me, almost like to get out of where I was and just to actually experience sport in a way that is super fun. And just the freedom of it and the happiness that it all it gave us all. We were just every single time we went on the bike, we were racing each other, attacking each other and just
Like kids playing in the playground, but we were on our bikes and that was the sort of feeling that we had. It wasn't necessarily a certain moment. It was just the h the complete picture of the group of friends that we did have and meeting every single day before school, after school, during school to train. And it didn't feel like training. It just felt like meeting a group of friends and just hanging out. And at the same time we were riding super fast and creating amazing memories.
Having fun and it that that's what's so beautiful about cycling. I mean, we're basically kids on bikes, right? It's like I was mentioning that smile from ear to ear. Let's talk about the curveball that was thrown at you. And this is what happens when we're hit with a blood clot because they come out of nowhere most of the time. You're training, you're competing, you're right here in your prime, and then boom, you suffer a blood clot. What was happening in your life and career?
when you suffered that blood clot. I was training for the Tour de France, actually. And a Tour de France that I was really looking forward to. I think the first week there was three or four stages that suited me really well. And the last few Tour de Frances I didn't have those opportunities. So just before I had like my mid season sort of rebuild for the Tour de France, I won my last race that I did. So I was on a bit of a high. Everything was going really well. Amazing preparation for for the Tour de France and for the
The next races coming up, Canadian Classics, World Championships, everything was going really well. I think I had a pretty good start to the season and finished it well with the win and was up in altitude, preparing for the Tour de France. And yeah, it happened. Did it feel unfair? I mean, you're just you're cranking along and everything's fine, and then all of a sudden, did it just feel like you were betrayed by your body? Firstly, I was very scared and confused. Being a professional athlete, you eat well.
You train well, you sleep well, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you're doing everything right that all the science says you should do as a person. You you're fit, you're healthy, you're young. I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong to for something like this to happen to me. So I was very confused, yeah. So what did it feel like in your body? Can you kind of walk us through what those first symptoms felt like? Lack of oxygen, mainly for me.
Because the clots were in in my lungs. So I was doing same training I always did leading into Tour de France. And my coach was on following me in the car. And the last effort where I really realized it was I was coming around this hairpin. It was about eight minutes into the ten minute effort and I'd already been completely struggling till this point. Got to this hairpin where he was he was waiting for me. And I basically went like this, like, I can't breathe. And he's like, just keep pushing, just like
Maybe you need to push through it, you know, like maybe it's just like a block in your legs and you can get through it. Which I I managed to get to the top, finished the ten minutes with still amazing power, which I was quite happy with. Then I went for a second one and I got maybe twenty seconds in and there was nothing, nothing there. I was at altitude, so I was at two thousand something meters above sea, doing these really hard efforts. And
It just didn't make sense. Like my heart rate was really low, which normally it should be super high for these sorts of efforts. I felt like I was underwater, like I could just had no oxygen in my lungs whatsoever. So just one of the strangest feelings I've had ever on on the bike and yeah. Before you suffered the pulmonary embolism, the blood clot in the lung, had you ever had any you know, when you're when you're riding, I imagine that there are times where you have some calf discomfort, you know, in your legs. I don't know if you're if you're dehydrated.
If you're pushing too hard, did you ever have any indication that something was wrong in another part of your body before that blood clot went mobile and went to your lung? No. I mean, it's hard to say when you're pushing your body to the limits every single day. It's difficult to say if there was some science because we're so brainwashed just to keep pushing through those sorts of feelings, you know, you that you just have to keep going. And I think the biggest problem for me was I have also allergies against grass and dust.
So I was thinking for a while that it was like allergies against because they were cutting all the grass because the Giro di Italia was coming to through the same area that I was training in at the time. So there was a lot of factors that could cause this sort of breathing problem at that time. So we were sort of thinking it was that, but then it just got so bad that the red light started flashing for sure. So was medical personnel called and were you taken to the hospital?
And what went through your head when you were told or how did they tell you that you had a blood clot and did they make it sound pretty serious? Did you know it was a serious thing? Well, it was actually my wife that told me to to go straight to the hospital. I called my team and said this is the feelings I'm having and they were thinking, No, it's maybe you just need rest and maybe you just pushed your body too far and need to rest it out and yeah, have maybe one or two rest days and then we go again. But
My wife is really my rock. She does everything with me. She knows my body as good as I do. She talks to my coach. She talks to my nutritionist. She does everything. So she was really like, No, you get in the car, drive across the border to Switzerland, 'cause there's a really good hospital just next to St Maritz. Drive there straight away and get this checked, do a blood check and see what's going on, because this is not normal for you to have these symptoms and end your training like you did and
there's just something wrong. Cause o also after the training, we went back to the hotel, had some lunch, and like, okay, let's just go for a walk just to clear the head. Maybe it's maybe it's just a block in my head, you know? Maybe it's just yeah, something something's wrong. Let's just go for a walk around town. And then for some reason, just walking around town, my heart rate just shot up to like one seventy out of nowhere. We're just walking around town and then that was the real moment where I like, Yeah, okay, my wife is right. I really need to go and go and see someone about this. So I was actually
Just with my coach in the mountains, so he drove me across to Switzerland to this really nice hospital in Samedan. And basically that's where yeah, we started getting all the checks. So did they give you blood tests, like a like a D dimer? Do you remember that? Is that one of the first things that they did? And then what you probably got a a C T scan of your lungs? Yeah, they did a normal blood check first because they weren't really sure what was going on. Then they saw some plots in obviously in the blood. And then they did the
directly into my wrist, like straight in, not on an angle, but straight in. And then they were like, yep, you're coming with us. And we went to a different part of the hospital. I got a C T scan for my lungs and I still remember seeing the face of the of the doctor when he had the obviously the the results in his hand and looking at me it was just like, what how does this how does this make sense? Like this is not for a person that looks like you that's your age with
a scan full of clots all through your lungs. Like he was thinking it was like the wrong person's scan, not mine. You had several pulmonary embolisms. Yeah. Yeah. Did they tell you how many? Honestly I didn't I didn't want to know. One was already enough, but there was lots, which was quite scary. And the whole time you're having a hard time breathing, you're in a lot of pain? Honestly, my pain was mostly when I was doing high intense exercise, I would say. I think
This is something that almost also needs to be discussed because they were saying to me that if I don't have general pain, these clots for a normal person could be there without people even knowing. And they actually have the problem, but they don't even know about it. Because I mean, I guess I'm such a highly trained athlete that normal, general day-to-day things, if I have a little bit lack of breath or something, I think it could be allergies or
Something else, but you never think of like a blood clot in your lungs. So it's I'm actually really lucky that we did find it during exercise and obviously my wife told me to go and get the check 'cause after he told me that I had the clots, he said, if you trained one to two more days like you were, you would have killed yourself. That was when tears started coming out of my eyes and just being like, This is a second chance in life for me. I was in a hospital by myself in Switzerland, like my wife was
Here in Monaco. My family's obviously on the opposite side of the world. My coach was by my side and he obviously eventually had to leave because I'd stay overnight and get more checks done and everything. So I was laying in this hospital bed just thinking, like, Am I gonna wake up in the morning? Like it was just such a experience that yeah, I've sorta tried to forget, to be honest.
When it comes to stress and anxiety, it is imperative to emphasize just how much bearing they can have over both short-term and long-term health. With blood clots specifically, do elevated levels of stress increase risk of a clotting event? What about the increased stress as a result of a near-fatal clot? Here to discuss post-traumatic stress disorder and its relation to blood clots both as a potential contributing factor and as a result of a clotting event.
This is Dr. Jeffrey Klein. Well, let me make a general statement about pulmonary embolism. Is I don't really think pulmonary embolism is anything special in terms of producing PTSD. I believe that multiple other threats to life do similar things with a little bit different manifestations because with blood clots you have to take blood anticoagulant oftentimes for life, but stroke.
Heart attack, cancer, severe infection all produce similar type of syndromes that can be overlapping. Now, whether or not you go on to develop a psychological manifestation that then activates your clotting system is an intriguing theory. But it's back to your point about does PTSD itself propagate clotting? And I think it's fascinating. There is
Preliminary evidence that that is a reasonable hypothesis, a reasonable question, but there's no definite answer. When you start hearing about other people's stories and realizing how many lives we lose every day from a sudden death blood clot, you realize how lucky we are, how blessed we are. And I know that's a tough thing. And thank God for your wife, right? It's like having the wife there to push you and to care and to
maybe see things and feel things that you don't in that particular moment. That's really important. But how did your team react? What kind of support did you get from them? How did they feel about what was going on? Once obviously I was diagnosed with it. They were amazing. They basically took me, I think it was like two days later, we I left the hospital in in Swiss and then they took me directly to a hospital clinic in Milan where I got every single possible check that you could get done.
Because it was a clinic that they work with, because basically my team is an Australian team, but they're registered in Italy. So all the bases and everything is just outside of Milan. So they have a good, really good relationship with this clinic close by. And we checked from my toe to my the my last hair follicle of of my whole body. And the positive thing was that from there was no clots anywhere else in my body. It was just, just in my lungs.
But we did obviously did more checks over months after and just continued checking if there was a reason for this or where it started or because yeah, we just had no idea where it actually came from because the rest of the body was completely fine. So in in one way I was lucky, but in another way it's like if we did know where it was coming from, it might be easier to solve the situation because you have a bit more of an idea of the whole picture. You ended up getting
Genetic blood testing done for clotting disorders? Like had this ever run in your family? Did you have any history in the family of this? No, never. Never. So we did obviously yeah, we did the whole the whole genetic blood test and that came back, yeah, completely negative. So we ticked every box of options to check of where this came from and yeah, there's no signs of any direction where it came from. Even at this time you really don't know what caused it, or do you have any suspicions?
on what might have happened to cause the blood clot. Yeah, obviously we got suspicions, but we can never really put it down to a hundred percent what caused it. But yeah, I think from our research of everything that I've done differently, let's say, or tried new or something, there's only really one thing that we can say that's it could possibly be it, but we can't really say a hundred percent, yeah.
So what kind of treatment did they put you on and for how long? Like what which anticoagulant or blood thinner did they put you on and for how long was the treatment going to be? Excelerato or something ex Zeralto. Zoralto, that one, yeah. Yeah. So I was on that for three months. Every day for three months. Okay. And pretty much after maybe two just over two weeks, I was able to we were getting checks obviously every single day, checking everything. And
My head was just completely because obviously the Tour de France was on at the time and my wife wanted to not say the right word, but she was getting really angry that I was so at home with so much yeah, anger inside and obviously happy that we found out the thing. But when I sort of knew that, okay, it's three months of taking the blood thinners and you should be back to normal. Once I got this sort of information, I was just like, Okay, will I be able to ride my bike again? And all the doctors were sort of saying, Yeah.
The only problem at this point taking the blood thinners is if you crash, you get the bleeding in the brain and die. So for that three months that you were taking Zoralto, you couldn't be on your bike. What did you do in that three months? And was it three months and then you stopped, or did you have to stay on it a little bit longer? Yeah, this is my biggest problem. I can't sit still. I think I sat still for ten days. And from all the information we did get from all the doctors.
We pretty much saw everyone that was the top in this areas around Europe and basically they said from already like ten days of taking the blood thinners, the blood clots were gone in my lungs. So from there it was more the risk that I was willing to take myself of crashing on the bike. So I actually did start training after two weeks on the blood thinners or training riding my bike just for an hour a day.
couple of times a week and yeah, slowly just increased the training and yeah, it's sorta hard to say because probably shouldn't have done it looking back. But yeah, I was already I think on the second last day of taking my bud thinners, I was already racing my bike. So I'm definitely one someone that can't sit still. I was pushing the team just to let me race again. Like I can't just sit at home and and do nothing. I need to be racing and
They basically said to me, You can have the rest of the year off if you want and just make sure you fully recover, but yeah, I can't sit still. I remember my vascular surgeon, 'cause I still have a chronic blood clot in my leg and I I still ride and I'm on anticoagulants. And, you know, he said, Well, this is a risk versus benefit situation. It was good for you that you kept doing it. You knew the risks. You're wearing your helmet. You're probably not doing seventy mile an hour descent at that time. You were was you doing
Were you a little bit more casual or were you really pushing it? No, obviously you make sure you limit the risks, no. I mean, I think during that time was probably the safest I would ever was on my bike, obviously, because I still didn't know the full extent of what was going on in my body because I mean I'm not a doctor, I'm an athlete. So if I set myself a goal, I obviously want to try and achieve that. No. And when they basically said to me that as long as you don't crash.
You should be okay. I was obviously taking a lot more care than I normally am on the bike. Obviously, yeah. During that three months it was I was really careful. Okay, I was training hard, more uphill, because it was safer, obviously, and then just being more careful on the downhills. And my wife was following me a lot in the car, actually, just making sure I was safe, especially cars from behind, because you can't really predict that what they're gonna do. So she had a lot of fights with people, you know, blocking them, making sure they were slowing down around me and stuff. So
I had a lot of support, which was which was great, yeah. Do you listen to your body differently now? Like are you aware, even though you can have a blood clot and not know about it, you're probably very much more aware of symptoms now and warning signs. Do you find yourself maybe not obsessed with it, but you know those in the back of your mind and you probably are monitoring your body maybe in a different way since you suffered that PE? Yeah, definitely. I think every single time I'm
I have some sort of little tingle in my body now. I get it checked straight away. I think like in any way I get blood tests almost done probably twice a month. So we're constantly getting checked on our on our bloods, making sure that we are fit and healthy to race. I think in my team, especially now after my situation, everything is much more monitored. We're doing constant saturation checks in the morning.
The doctors constantly coming around and checking if we're okay, especially with crashes, everything too, everything is getting much more monitored. So And so you're training now and plan on being in the Tour de France this year? That's your goal, right? Yeah. You were talking earlier about there's like three or four stages that you were focused on back when you were training. What are your favorite stages? Which ones do you really focus on and shoot for? And I know you try to do your best on all of them, but where do you excel? Which stages?
I would say on like the more punchy stages, like not necessarily a full flat stage, but not a mountain stage, but something in between those sorts of like with a steep uphill finish or some climbs through the race that are not like G C sort of stages. So sort of intermediate, I say would stages that I really target where everyone's a little bit tired, but there's still some sort of sprint in the finish, which suits me really well. I would say before you experiment with anything in the gym, aka BFR.
Make sure you get your body checked before you try something new like the blood flow restrictor systems. Because we think this was causing my blood clots. So make sure you get a proper check from your from your doctor and make sure the program is very specific for you because yeah, this is what we think started my issue. If someone says I'm fit, this can't happen to me, this'll never happen to me, what do you say?
I'm a true case of that, I guess. I guess I'm probably one of the fittest athletes in the world and yeah, it can still happen. And so no one's invincible. Everyone's human. And yeah, I'm like we said before, one of the lucky ones that was able to get onto it before it took my life. And I'm thankful to my wife to for the rest of my life now that she forced me to go and get it get a proper check.
I think you're a huge voice for this because awareness has always been a problem with blood clots. Back when my mom died sudden death of a PE, we didn't have any awareness in in the nineteen eighties. And it's like even now we struggle to get that information out there and have people listen. And I just think that you're a huge voice in the awareness factor for this. From someone that's worked with patience and advocacy for 15 years, I can tell you that this can save a lot of lives, Michael. I would very much love to have you on board.
being a voice for blood clot patients and getting people to wake up. And I think this story with the podcast, I think it's gonna be excellent. I'm especially attached to it because of the cycling factor. I just think that's a huge platform to touch a lot of people. What are you most proud of? another big question. I mean always turning back to the athlete part of it, how I was able to get myself out of this situation and still come back and compete at the top level.
'Cause everyone was telling me that my career was gonna be over. I mean, I'm not young anymore, I'm thirty five. So thirty-five is getting more towards the end of your career as a as a professional cyclist. And everyone was saying, Okay, this is the end of your career now, you can't come back, blah blah blah and multiple different people telling me it wasn't possible and being able to fight through it and come back and now it's the next year and already win my second bike race that I raced.
I guess that's something I'm probably the most proud of is the way I was able to bounce back from a situation that was thrown at me. I think that's a great answer and I think it's a a hopeful answer and I think that's what people need to hear. That's what patients need to hear because they are they struggle, obviously, just like you did, just like I did. And when they can hear words like that from someone like you, it just makes all the freaking difference in the world, bro. I mean it's just
That's why I'm just so appreciative of you spending the time and I know you got to get going. I know you're a hard ass trainer man and I just love it. I'm just thankful that you're still here.
Thank you for joining us on another episode of Taking a Breath. We want to thank Michael one more time for sharing his journey 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 stoptheclot.org. And if you wish to aid in our efforts of blood clot awareness, please consider donating to our cause at stoptheclot.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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