Welcome to The Impatient Patient

It was the 6th of August, and I was out in Liverpool celebrating my 25th birthday. I’d had quite a substantial amount to drink and was partying the night away. I’d recently returned from Mexico and was just a week into my new role at Royal and Sun Alliance. Life felt good.

As the night went on, I was dancing when someone spun me across the dance floor. I fell heavily on my left leg. I think the sheer amount of alcohol in my system numbed the pain, so I carried on regardless.

The weekend ended far too soon, and Monday morning rolled around. I’d been complaining of hip pain over the weekend. When I got up that morning, the top of my leg was badly swollen. I don’t know why, at the age of 25, I let myself be convinced I had to go into work. I could barely walk down the road to the train station.

My leg felt like it was about to burst. The pain was so intense it took my breath away.

When I got to work, I asked the girls on my team if they thought my leg looked swollen. They all agreed something was wrong and suggested I go to A&E. That evening, I had a date planned with someone I’d met over the weekend. I decided to go to the GP instead. I called the surgery, and they managed to fit me in that morning.

I saw my regular GP, who examined my leg and diagnosed a possible internal bleed from the fall. She advised me to keep walking on it every hour. She also asked me to call her the next day with an update. I went on the date that night and remember saying to the guy, “Please excuse my leg—I fell on Friday night and apparently have internal bleeding.” He replied, “I’m glad it’s just the one. I thought you had fat legs.”

The date ended, and I went home, but I barely slept due to the pain. The next morning, I woke up to find my leg had swollen like a tree trunk. I woke my mum and said, “We need to go to A&E.”

The closest A&E was at Aintree. My mum and I got a cab and braced ourselves for the delights of early morning emergency care. I was seen fairly quickly by a fresh-faced junior doctor, new to the department. He told the consultant he suspected a broken leg and that I needed an X-ray. The consultant came in and examined my leg, umming and ahhing as she deliberated over what it might be.

Eventually, she ordered a series of tests, one of which was a venogram, as she suspected a blood clot. At the time, I didn’t really understand what that meant—it wasn’t explained to me. I was simply wheeled off to radiography and placed in a room with what looked like a medieval torture device.

They laid me on the table and strapped tourniquets up my leg. Then they inserted a cannula into my foot and injected the dye. The table began to tilt, and the tourniquets were slowly loosened. The dye travelled up my leg—until it reached my knee and stopped.

And there it was—the moment that changed my life. The radiographer looked at me and said, “Have your mum bring you some clothes in. You’re not going anywhere tonight. You have a blood clot from your knee to your hip.”

That day, Liverpool was hit by unusually bad weather—especially for August. A&E was absolutely jam-packed, as another nearby hospital’s emergency department had flooded. My mum rushed home to grab an overnight bag for me. I was left sitting in a chair in a room full of other patients. We were all waiting to be carted off to whichever part of the hospital had a spare bed.

A nurse came over. She asked if I minded going into the toilet. She needed to give me an injection and some tablets. I now know she was administering Fragmin and warfarin. I was then taken up to the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU), where I saw a consultant. It was briefly explained to me that I’d had a blood clot—deep vein thrombosis (DVT). I was told, “You’re lucky to be alive!”

And then things got confusing. I was handed some tablets. I also received a few injections. After that, I was sent on my merry way home. No overnight stay. Just a casual, “Hey ho, you’re lucky to be alive. Here’s your yellow book. Can you come back in tomorrow for an INR blood test?”

Looking back now at my first diagnostic experience, I wish I could say things have changed significantly. Unfortunately, they haven’t. Yes we have Ultrasound now to diagnose and we have the direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC’s) which don’t need monitoring. But the delivery of the diagnosis is much the same. Recognition of the signs and symptoms of VTE still remains pretty hit and miss.

It’s been 21 years since my first DVT. In that time, this condition has remained a leading cause of hospital death in the UK. For something this serious, I would have expected to see bigger improvements than what I have.

The most common symptom of a DVT is unexplained pain in the leg. This can be accompanied by redness and swelling but mostly its just pain. If you have these symptoms please seek medical advice urgently.

Don’t be like me and go on a date first ….. It definitely was not worth the potential consequences.