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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.
Instinct, our driving force in moments of survival, even when we can't articulate the why or the how we just know. I ended up going to a spine specialist who did a scan and said that it looks like your lung has collapsed. So let's get you into a pulmonologist. And at that point, that was like on a Monday. And I remember calling my husband.
saying, I don't think I can make it to Thursday's appointment to see a pulmonologist. It's not just knowing intuitively when something is wrong, but knowing instinctively the timeline of when it becomes too late. Acting on a resonant intuition can save your life. Fabi and her pervert curled up with a photo, wedding photo, and I was in so much pain. And that was like the most relief I could have because
I couldn't breathe. had the pain around my rib cage and you're just like so full of blood clots you don't know what's going on. And no one could tell me what was going on.
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.
Resilience is our ability to take the seemingly unyielding difficulties throughout our life and grow into a more understanding and capable individual. It reiterates the ideal that even when we fail, we fail with our heads held high. Our guest today is someone whose exemplary resilient spirit reminds us what we're capable of as individuals when we try and try again. As a 2010 Olympian,
two-time U.S. Sprint Champion and Master World Sprint Champion in speed skating, our guest knows the diligence and fortitude it takes to be the best. Please join me in welcoming the wonderfully inspiring Rebecca Bradford.
I'm Rebecca Brafford. I'm a 2010 U.S. Olympian in long track speed skating, and I'm also a blood clot survivor. Since surviving blood clots, I've also been able to go back to my sport and compete at a high level. And that experience has shaped my journey for the things that I experienced since then from my blood clot episode. I think we need to back up to 2010 on how I made the Olympic team, which is an incredible story in itself.
So in order to make the Olympic team at that point, I had to win the U.S. Olympic trials because the other girls have pre-qualified for spots. So there was one spot available to make the team and I fell and crossed the line and came in second and I was devastated. I was crying. It was like one of the most embarrassing experiences, right? In front of my family and I remember looking
in the stands and I saw my three-year-old nephew at the time and I was like, okay, I got to show him that you got to stand up after you fall and it doesn't matter what happens, but you got to get up and move on. And so I was granted a reskate to qualify for team, but that was like 30 minutes after an all out effort. I'm emotionally drained. I don't want to be on the line, but I just wanted to finish my career on my feet and
I feel like that race just flowed for me. Not only did I skate a personal best and became the U.S. sprint champion, I qualified for the Olympic team. And so because I made the Olympic team, I was asked to do a celebrity date option, and that's how I met my husband. So he was a stalker on, I don't want to say stalker, but he was a stalker on my fan page.
and he placed the winning bid to come do this meet and greet with me. And lucky for him, it was love at first sight. And he, to this day, will say that he had no intention of pursuing me whatsoever, but I disagree with that. So I had to pursue him for a while and we started our relationship when I said I was not interested in a guy for him because my goal was to escape for the 2014 Olympics.
And this is around six months after the 2010 Olympics. And we started a relationship at that point. And I was training, we were long distance. He proposed, you know, it's a beautiful love story that we had. And then three months before our wedding day, which was in 2012, I started taking hormonal birth control. And at that time I did not know I had factor five Leiden, which is a blood clotting disorder.
And the birth control that I took increased the chances more of blood clotting and triggering that blood clot disorder to activate. And I had immediate signs of symptoms of blood clots. But when I called my OB at the time and said, I'm experiencing these symptoms, the answer back to me was it's a new medication. It's my body getting used to it. Don't worry about it. And I was like, okay.
So life moved on and when I say immediate signs and symptoms, I was having pain in my calf and then it started going up into my legs. I call it the summer of the skirt because I couldn't wear leggings or jeans because that pressure on my legs was too painful. And then it started to travel up to my lungs. So keep in mind, I was surrounded by healthcare professionals getting ready for Olympic team, but
What everyone saw was a girl falling in love with her fiance, getting ready to get married, and she's an athlete and she's getting ready for the Olympics.
The group of people I was with, had the best intentions, but they didn't have the lens that here's a voice that doesn't make sense. Let's dig deeper. And around this three month mark where I got married, the symptoms started to travel into my lungs and the consensus there was maybe I need to do more cardio. I need to work out more. My fitness isn't there where it's not up to par. So
I started playing Ultimate Frisbee with my friends. It was so fun to blow off steam that way. And I got collided by one of my friends and I call that my life saving impact because I had clots that burst and bled around my rib cage. I didn't know that that was what was happening, but that was about month five of my six month misdiagnosis. And that's when I started to go outside to other doctors to see what was going on. And I ended up going to a spine specialist who did a scan and
said that it looks like your lung has collapsed. So let's get you into a pulmonologist. And at that point, that was like on a Monday. And I remember calling my husband saying, I don't think I can make it to Thursday's appointment to see a pulmonologist. And he's like, let me come home. Let me take care of you. We're three months into our marriage at this point. So this is six months, Mark, three months into our marriage. And he found me on the
Fabi and her apartment curled up with a photo, wedding photo, and I was in so much pain. And that was like the most relief I could have because I couldn't breathe. I had the pain around my rib cage and you're just like so full of blood clots, you don't know what's going on. And no one could tell me what was going on. So was like, I don't need to go the ER. They're not going to be able to find anything. And I was in such good hands when I got into the ER because it was packed.
And I got first in line. You you go in, they do all the checks and they like got me in line. And then the nurses before the ER doctor this year, the ER doctor diagnosed me with blood clots. And I was like, I don't know what those are. And I have a competition in a month and I'm going to skate. He said, you're not going to skate. You have this diagnosis. And then the nurses like gave me a lovinoc shot and then they did all their tests after that. And I think that's probably what saved my life.
was that they immediately shot me with lobenox. And then they did all the tests and saw that I had a bilateral pulmonary embolism, which is blood clots in both your lungs with a partial infarct on my right lung, because that's where the blood clots burst and and blood around my rib cage.
I think that if I would have known what blood clots were, what to look for, you know, when you're getting a prescription and they say, hey, you could have these side effects, educate yourself on it. But if blood clots are prevalent with birth control, if someone along the line of in my lifetime, when I did take hormonal birth control, if someone said, look out for this, I would have been more of an advocate for myself. My
My husband knew something was deeper there when the ER doctor came in and just turned off his sports game because the ER room had, they had a TV and he was, you know, watching some game that was going on. And he was like, this is, this is serious. And I think that I was relieved to have a name to it, but I didn't still understand what it was.
and thought that maybe I could get some medicine, it would just go away really fast and I can get back to what I wanted to do. You know, when you're living in it and it's not until what it gets named, then your body experiences everything like it just releases. And I was in so much pain and I was probably in the same amount of pain leading up to that moment. But my body saw a moment to recover and say, you need to address this now. And I was on a
Morphine drip and I remember asking for more morphine at some point because I couldn't bear the pain and I've never experienced that before in my life and I was like this nurse cannot get here fast enough to give me this medicine because it was at the devil's hour at like three in the morning, right? thankfully I got the medicine I needed at that point, but I was set up with a wonderful thrombosis doctor and he's become a friend of mine since then
And he really took the time to educate me with where I'm at, what to expect, what I can do, and really walked me through that process. And I'm so grateful for that because I hear stories of other blood clot survivors who haven't necessarily experienced that or gotten the education they needed on their diagnosis and what it looks like to move forward. And everyone's journey is different, too, because it's not like something that you can
actually do a trial on. You don't want to give someone blood clots and then do a test on them. So shout out to Dr. Scott Stevens. But I really appreciate all the education that he gave me and all the love and passion to get me on the start on my healing journey. For the athletes out there, my resting heart rate is around high 40s and I was
lying in the ER room with a resting heart rate around 130, 140. And the ER doctor said I was close to having a stroke or a heart attack if I didn't get in that day. I probably most likely what I shared with my husband, I don't think I could have made it to Thursday.
And I still had this dream to go back to the Olympics in the ER room. And I'm trying to convince my newlywed husband to get on board with this. And I held onto this hope that my thrombosis doctors shared with me is to live life as normally as possible. And that was my beacon of hope. And I go, my normal is to try to be as excellent as possible. And so I really learned the art of scaling with.
when I did try to go back to training, I will tell you, I had to keep a daily journal on my progress where I could go to church and stand up and sing for one song. That was a victory. Like I would get out of breath or I can have a conversation with a friend standing up because that's where I was. Or the first time I went to the skating rink, I walked into the skating rink and all my teammates were super excited to see me, but I had to sit down. I couldn't.
experience that excitement and return it standing up and having a conversation because I didn't have the air in my lungs to do that. Or if my team was doing extensive endurance activity, my first workout was to try to go get the mail and then I came back into my apartment at the time and I rested for hours. That was so exhausting to me and that was the equivalent of doing a full day's worth of a workout and I had to be proud of
that moment and that success that I had. And I'm very grateful for my doctor. We were very intense with the Lovenox shots for a month. So that was twice daily therapeutic dose. And I had to choose what part of my abs, because that's the closest fat tissue to your lungs to administer the medicine where I could handle the medicine. Because for anyone who has not had the privilege of having a Lovenox shot,
It feels like a bee sting and I couldn't administer it myself. I had to give myself one shot in order to leave the hospital, but I would have to drive to my husband's work to give the medicine for me because I couldn't do it myself. And then I had like, thank God I had one spot in my stomach that didn't hurt as bad. So I would save that for the worst case. So we did about one month of lovin' knock shots and then two months of Zoralto.
and I would go back on the ice and try to skate in that moment. So this is September to December of 2013. And so there was a U.S. championship that I wanted just to compete in. And the U.S. championship, that's the year leading up to the Olympics, and that's to determine World Cups. And those World Cups are important because they help determine how many Olympic spots are available to keep Pete on for the next year.
So when I went on the ice, was wearing a helmet, which because when you're on blood thinners, you want to protect your organs. And if you fall, there's not much you can do to protect your organs, but I can protect my head. And I trusted my teammates and myself more on the ice than I did when I was driving a car. So that was something that my doctor shared with me too. He's like, you know, we can get you back into sport as long as you feel safe with it and comfortable with it. Your body is going to limit you with what you can do. And
to accept that for what it is. And then you're going to take on a risk no matter what, no matter how you live your life. So I really did take that advice of living your life as normally as possible. And it's still something I take along with me with my life when I go, this is plan A, and then I have to, you know, we do this all the time. We filter and sometimes we have to be okay with plan D, plan E, you know, or the 12th plan of the day. I think that if you're in the thick of it,
and you don't know what to do, find your community, find your support. And that could just be a handful of people. I had a handful of people praying for me and I stayed away from those social media groups because I felt that it focused on the diagnosis instead of how to move past that. And so I really avoided those types of forums and really sought out
other blood clot survivors and followed them on social media and asked them how they did it and relied on the National Blood Clot Alliance. I really did. I was on the website and getting a wealth information. helped me through all those moments.
There are so many factors to consider when dissecting the how of life altering medical events. Knowing that as complex individuals with an infinite combination of genetic predispositions, lifestyle experiences, and every other little thing that makes us so unique, it can be difficult to parse the ultimate reality of why. Here to discuss hormonal birth control and factor five Leiden as compounding risk factors for those who experience blood clots,
This is Dr. Carolyn Cromwell from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. There's a lot that goes into our coagulation system and essentially they work on sort of different parts of our coagulation system and normally we're at a perfect balance between clotting and bleeding but with the factor V line and mutation as well as the birth control, we end up having an imbalance.
And even with the factor five lydin, that is something that can cause more issues when there is another issue, such as surgery, travel, things like that. So it is additive, but essentially it is changing our coagulation system and making us more likely to have a clot. So they don't interact with each other, but both of them are causing us to be more likely to have a clot occur.
For all of our listeners out there, we have another guest on the show with you, which is your daughter, Gabby. So we're delighted to have Gabby here with us today. I listened to you and I thought so much has changed and so much hasn't changed. Here we are, there's new treatment options, there's all kinds of new anticoagulants that are coming down the pike, but people are still being misdiagnosed. Thank God that I had blood clots because a year later,
My mom had blood clots. wow. And I was able to go. This is an abnormal thing for you. You need to go get that checked out. And she was hospitalized that day. Right. So it's I see this healthy person in front of me. She looks, you know, newlywed, married, happy, all these good things. She's going to go for an Olympic team. That voice is different, though, like it was abnormal to go in. Hey, this.
this elite athlete can't run a 400 meter to save her life. There's something wrong there. You know, one of things that we also often don't spend enough time on is the role of the partner or the husband or the wife or the caregiver, whomever that may be. What was it like for your husband? I mean, you guys were just newly married and boom, all of a sudden you've got this life changing, life altering experience.
What was that like for him? It was very difficult for him and it really showed his strength, honestly, because the way how he caretakes and the way how I was so emotional and trying to figure out everything and I needed someone to give me medicine. He was able to go in and be the hero in that moment and take care of me because
If the role was flipped, think I would have a hard time administering shots to someone. That's just my personality. I would do it. I would figure it out. But I just was really appreciated of him in those tender moments and those early moments. And I know that he carried a lot of the emotions on his shoulder right with me while I was recovering. Has your experience with having a blood clot, has it changed your sense of priorities?
in your life since this has happened. know, you know, for me it did. And I, you know, I think I was so caught up in like the acute moment. I wasn't thinking about down the road. And so has this changed your priorities in your life? It changed that I now had to advocate for myself now. I had that major blood clotting episode in 2012 and I don't need to be on a lifetime of blood thinners because my episode was provoked.
and we took away that thing that provoked the gene to activate. The hormonal birth control. Yes. And then I've had clotted sinthin from surgery. So now I have a game plan in place when I've had surgeries sinthin on how to recover from that. So I feel that I'm removed to the point where I almost don't think about it anymore. And that would be my hope for others who are going through this journey to be at a point where
they know how to look for it and they know how to take care of it and they know that they will be okay and not to live their life in fear. Like there is hope, there is treatment, there is early diagnosis. It doesn't have to go into your lungs. You can catch it early in your calf and go on with your life. Yes. And even if it does go into your lungs and it's caught, you can still go on with your life. mean, where you and I are.
walking, talking examples of that. And it's important we give people hope. You know, this is scary, but it's preventable. And if people know signs and symptoms also, you know, that goes a long way towards saving lives. I just want to walk through that again. And it sounded like this had been going on for a while with you before it was actually caught. Can you walk through what the initial signs and symptoms were, the progression of it? Like, where did it start? What did you feel?
so that other people can identify potentially the same signs and symptoms. So I had swollen calves and I thought I would wake up with Charlie horses and I would foam roll and try to do a trigger point massage, which you don't want to do that when you have a blood clot. But I was foam rolling my legs and when I into my legs, I would start doing the Nord attack, which is the compressions on your legs, which is probably something else you don't want to do. But I was trying to do all the recovery things to flush out
all this swelling in my legs. And then when it traveled up into my lungs, I wasn't recovering the way how I was supposed to from my workouts. I couldn't complete my workouts the way I wanted to until I couldn't do my workouts anymore because I just couldn't breathe that my heart rate was so high. So that was a slow progression. And one of the things that was shared with me was that my clots were tiny, which was probably one of the reasons
why I'm still here, but they're also one of the more painful. I was told that they were one of the more painful ones because it touches more surface area in your nerve tissues there. Yeah. So you were bilateral. So it was in both of your lungs at that point in time. Yes. Yeah. So we really want people to know those signs and symptoms and whether you're an elite athlete like you are or a weekend warrior, signs and symptoms are signs and symptoms and knowing them can make the difference between
saving a life or not. So just really want our listeners to better understand what they are and not think that they're just related to an elite athlete, but really just to the general public overall. Like anybody can get this. Yes. And there is hope on the other side, because I do CrossFit. I'm able to push workouts hard. I'm lifting weights. I'm doing the things that I love to do. I'm also a mother and I'm able to raise my daughter.
you know, enjoy long, full days and embrace this part of my life. That's awesome. We want, we want people to have that hope that life does return hopefully to normal and you can excel and exceed in, different ways. And you're, you're living that right now. Rebecca and Gabby, we just want to thank you for coming today and sharing your story. Wow. Super impactful. And you're going to help so many people.
because you're showing that there is hope after a blood clot. You can live your life fully after a blood clot. And people need to hear that, especially the folks that have just been diagnosed. So thank you for that. Thank you for giving strength and wisdom to folks that need some of it. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Taking a Breath. We want to thank Rebecca one more time for joining us today and sharing her 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 stoptheclaught.org. If you wish to aid in our efforts of blood clot awareness, please consider donating to our cause at stoptheclaught.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 StopTheClock.org.
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