It started out just like any other week. My job as a personal trainer keeps me extremely busy. I'm constantly going 100 miles per hour and bringing a ton of energy to my work. But by Wednesday, I was feeling off. Every time I took a deep breath, it felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife. I shook it off as a sore muscle and continued with my day as usual — I even bought a new car and trained one of the local tennis teams. When I finally sat down that night, I knew something wasn't right. It was unlike any other pain I had ever felt before.
Brian and I both shrugged it off and headed to bed, but I woke in agony in the middle of the night. The pain had moved up to my shoulder, and I could barely gasp for air. I woke Brian up and asked him to take me to the hospital; thankfully, it was only two miles away.
When we got there, I told them what my symptoms were. They asked only two questions: "Have you been in a recent car accident?" and "Are you on any birth control?" I explained that I hadn't been in an accident, but I've been on birth control for about eight years. (Disclaimer: I want you to know that these quotes are all according to Brian, because my memory is extremely fuzzy, as I want to preserve the validity of this story.)
They shot me with a blood thinner and gave me a CT scan. After an hour of mild consciousness, my results came back. I was suffering from two blood clots in my lungs, one of which had progressed into a pulmonary embolism. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, they told me that a portion of my lung was dead.
When a specialist reviewed my chart, they told me, "I don't mean to scare you, but there is no way you should be alive right now." If I hadn't woken up that night, I would have passed away in my sleep. "You must have a special purpose in this life," the specialist added. Brian smiled and said, "Well, we are getting married in a couple of months." The doctor looked at him, smiled in approval and told him, “God is good.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t out of the danger zone yet since it takes time for blood clots to dissolve. I spent two nights in the ICU, where Brian never left my side. We fell deeper in love after getting a scary glimpse of what it would be like to lose one another. Thankfully, I recovered, and our story didn't end there.
