Hello,

My name is Kelly-Jo Scott and I'm 23 years old. Five years ago over the Easter holidays, when I was 18, I was running for my train because I was going to be late for it. As I was running my whole left leg cramped up but I didn't think much of it at the time and kept limping as fast as I could to the train station. By the time I'd reach the train station I was in so much pain that I was sick several times and could hardly walk.

My mum picked me up in her car when I arrived at the train station near my house. I told her about what had happened and that I felt sick because I was in so much pain and couldn't move my leg. We both agreed that we were going to leave it for the night and go to the hospital in the morning if it was still bad. I never liked going to hospital for no reason, so I thought not much of it.

Taking some paracetamol I went to bed but the night I was restless and by the morning I was sitting on the top of the stairs crying because it was too painful to go down. I still tried none the less, lowering my self using my arms much more than my legs. My mum had heard me crying and woke up to see me not even had made it to the third set down before deciding to take me into hospital.

After the excruciatingly painful trip to the car and then the hospital we got told the hospital was only a minor injury A and E but they would try to get someone to see me regardless. After an hour of waiting we got seen by a nurse who helped me get on the hospital bed. She examined my leg and bent it, straightened it and twisted it causing me extreme pain with every movement. Deciding that I could move it, she said it must be a pulled muscle and gave me co-codamol and crutches, telling me if it doesn't get better in a week then to come back. This was on the Saturday before Easter.

Over the next two days my leg got progressively worse. The painkillers weren't helping and my leg had swollen up twice the size and starting showing bruises. By the Sunday night it was too painful to walk up the stairs and I ended up sleeping on the sofa, it felt like I was dying. By Monday evening my leg had gone completely purple and blue so my mum decided to take me to a different hospital on the Tuesday.

We left in the morning and headed straight for A and E. We didn't wait long until we were seen and the doctor examined my leg very carefully but didn't look at it long before sending me down for an ultrasound. I was pushed ahead of the que and practically taken in for the scan straight away.

We found out that I had DVT and that it started from my foot and went all the way up to my belly button. The doctor pulled my mum aside to tell her that if she hadn’t had brought me in then he didn’t think I would’ve lived for another night. It probably didn’t affect me as much as it should have because I knew it was true. The night before I went into hospital I felt like I was dying, I was in so much pain that I actually half wanted to, just to stop the pain.

Needless to say they kept me in hospital on mix of painkillers and an IV hooked up to a heparin infusion pump. The painkillers were still not doing much for the pain so the next day, on the Wednesday, they gave me morphine. The morphine didn’t work at all, it just made me incredibly sleepy as well as in pain and I couldn’t have any other painkillers because they gave me morphine. It didn’t help that that day I had the most amount of visitors and I kept dozing off or almost crying when I was awake because of the pain.

By Thursday they’d actually found a collection of painkillers that worked together and actually almost stopped the pain altogether as long as I didn’t move too much. The next few days were the worst and I just want to say before I talk about this next bit I don’t blame the staff at the hospital or anyone at all.

I was put in a room with three old ladies. One was dying and did unfortunately pass away during my stay, she wouldn’t make much sound or even eat anything although every now and again she’d laugh. One of the other ones kept getting out of bed and wandering the halls when she was told by the staff to stay in bed, they actually asked me to ring the nurse bell whenever she got up. The last woman I think had amnesia and possibly dementia as well because she kept forgetting where she was and calling for help, I would tell her to ring her nurses bell but she didn’t listen so I would ring mine instead.

Because I had to ring the bell so much for the other women the nurses ended up taking longer and longer to get to the room, so when I was ringing it for myself like when I needed a commode and help to get out of the bed they’d end up taking 10 minutes before they’d even get to me. On one of the nights I felt a pain in my arm and my muscles were cramping, the doctor had told me before hand if I felt anything like that especially if it was moving to tell a nurse straight away to go get a doctor because it might be some of the clot breaking off and it could end up in my heart and kill me.

It took them 20 minutes for the nurse to get to me, then I had to explain to her what I had and what the doctor had told me. She told me to go back to sleep and that she’d tell the doctor when he goes on his morning rounds. I insisted that the doctor told me to be seen straight away and that the pain was moving and she did eventually gave in and called the doctor on call. The doctor came and examined my arm, then he assured me that it wasn’t a blood clot but to still tell them in anything changes.

During my stay at the hospital I missed about a months worth of college but when I got out I worked hard to catch up with work even when my teachers and friends told me to take it easy. I wanted to go into university and I wasn’t going to let DVT stop me from getting there. I was on crutches and still doped up on painkillers and blood thinners when I went back to college, I also had to go once a week to my GP who took over my dosage of blood thinners. It wasn’t long after that though that my leg had started to swell again and started turning purple and I was sent to a different hospital with a special DVT department.

I was taking in for an ultrasound to find I had a new clot developing over the old one and that all my valves in my one leg were stuck open so all the blood kept back flowing. After that I was seen, I told the doctor my entire story and showed her my blood levels card that the GP had been filling in. She was furious with my GP and rang him up straight away to chastise him, also telling him she was going to take over looking over my blood thickness levels. I was put on a much higher dose of warfarin until my blood was at the right level. I was also measure for a compression sock to help with the blood flow.

I’m pleased to say that I don’t use the compression sock as often anymore and I did make it into university, finishing my degree with a 2:1. 

I'm now wanting to raise money and awareness for DVT and other Thrombosis problems. I was really lucky and I'm grateful for everyone that helped and stood by me.