How My Catholic Faith Helped Me Overcome Cerebral Venus Sinus Thrombosis
During COVID, federal health officials called for a “pause” in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after reports that six women who got the vaccine developed blood clots afterward. Close to 7 million people had gotten this vaccine in the U.S. to date. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained that these blood clots are extremely rare but that it is reviewing the cases. The type of blood clot recorded is a rare and severe one called Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (CVST). The symptoms of CVST vary, and can include headache, blurred vision, fainting or loss of consciousness, loss of control over movement in part of the body and seizures.
While I was still waiting to get my name on the list to be vaccinated for COVID, I am also a survivor of the CVST blood clot. When my daughter was born, I ended up having a c-section due to the hypertension that developed towards the end of the pregnancy. As I was waiting for the doctor to get ready for the c-section, I felt pain in my neck. Like the nurses, I figured it was just a kink that resulted from sleeping on the bed funny. So, I got myself rearranged on the bed in the hopes of a more comfortable position. The kink lingered, so we tried a heating pad and other remedies to get rid of the pain. Soon enough, it was time to have the c-section. My husband called my priest, who gave me the Sacrament of the Anointing of Sick. Having never received this sacrament before, I felt a profound comfort and this surge of courage as I was preparing to enter the operating room.
When I got to the operating room, the nurses and techs, who were going to help with the surgery, helped me on the table for the prep. I remember being laid down flat on my back with my arms spread out, almost like a reflection of Jesus on the cross. While the c-section was happening, I just closed my eyes and reflected on the cross of my Savior and this amazing connection I was having as my daughter was being born. The image that caught my attention was the water and blood coming out of Jesus’ side as He gave birth to the Church. While my situation was of no comparison to what Jesus experienced, I suddenly realized that blood and water were coming out of my body to give birth to my daughter. In this moment I understood the solidarity Jesus has with us in our moments of suffering and struggle, and that He is going through it with us and His own cross. It was a very profound and enriching moment of faith and truth behind the fruitfulness of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
Eventually, the c-section was completed and my beautiful little girl, Mary Ann, arrived the Wednesday of Holy Week 2019. For my husband and I that year, Easter came early. It was truly a special moment as a brand new mother with my brand new baby. Almost immediately after giving birth, I started to develop a headache. At first, I ignored it and was convinced it was a result of a combination of postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation, dehydration, and maybe hunger. After the first few nights in the hospital the pain in my neck was still present, and the headaches continued to progress regardless of the protocol responses that included a neck massage and pain medicine. The doctors and nurses also noticed my blood pressure had not dropped back to normal, so they put me on some blood pressure medicine to help.
After a few nights of postpartum, I was discharged and we were able to take our beautiful baby girl home.
For three weeks straight of postpartum, the pain in my neck and the headaches prevailed. This combined with the struggle to “sleep when she sleeps” became a challenge I was not ready for as a brand new mother. I was well mentally prepared for the all-nighters, breast feedings, and 24/7 cuddles, but not the brutal headaches and neck pain. I found myself doing everything I could to try to address the pain from eating, sleeping, water, exercise, and ibuprofen. I also brought the issue up with my doctor at every follow up postpartum appointment. He ended up putting me on a stronger pain killer, but that also was not working.
One afternoon, I was breastfeeding. When my daughter was finished, I handed her over to my husband so we could go for an afternoon family walk. After I gave her to my husband, I was unable to move my right arm. I remember looking at my arm and my brain telling it to move, but it couldn’t. Then, my right leg went numb, and the right side of my face started to droop. I looked at my husband and said, “We need to go to the ER.” My poor husband was already exhausted from having returned from a business trip, and had been up since 3 am earlier that day.
So, we got to the ER, got a CT scan of my brain, and the doctor found two blood clots in my brain, both of which contributed to the places I was experiencing pain. Both of them were on the left side of my forehead. I was diagnosed with the Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis blood clot. The plan was to put me in an ambulance and transport me to University of New Mexico Hospital for better care. This ended up being the longest four hour road trip I’d ever traveled.
As soon as we got the unfortunate news, we called my parents. They became worried and suggested we find someone to take care of Mary Ann to help my husband out while I was recovering in the hospital. My husband ended up calling our next door neighbor at the time. Our next door neighbor, by the grace of God, was also a Mary Anne and just amazing in that she adapted her work schedule accordingly, so she could give us as hand. She got our little one some formula, and also contacted our priest, who ended up driving them from Alamogordo to Albuquerque, New Mexico while I was on my way in the ambulance.
The parish community we had in Alamogordo, New Mexico was very family oriented. Mary Anne and her husband Tim took care of our Mary Ann for a few nights. They eventually became Mary Ann’s godparents. Then, our priest reached out to our parish deacon, and his wife who also stepped in to help us out. In time, our deacon would end up baptizing Mary Ann. By Mother’s Day, my mother had arrived. This wasn’t exactly the way my mother was supposed to meet her first grandchild, nor was it the way I thought I’d celebrate my first mother’s day, nonetheless, this was how it happened.
In the Catholic faith, we are nourished as both individuals and as a community by the source and summit of our faith, the Eucharist. Everything about who we are starts and ends there. In the Eucharist, Christ gives us His body in the elements of bread and wine to nourish us so we can share what we have in us with others. I have considered this to be the Body of Christ at work. This was and still is something I witness every day within the Catholic faith. In the way our community stepped up to provide our family with help in our most dire need, it clearly contributed to the power of the Eucharist.
I finally got to go back home a few days after Mother’s Day, and we were blessed beyond measure with the surrounding support of family and friends as I continued to recover. As part of the recovery, I had to be on blood thinners, do physical therapy and occupational therapy. The blood thinners helped to resolve the blood clotting situation in my head and neck. The physical therapy gave me my strength and stability back. And the occupational therapy gave my back the ability to use my right arm and hand again to do the little things like write my name, strum my guitar, and put on my mascara.
During this entire experience, I was enriched and formed through the gift of my Catholic faith. From this I learned more about the Eucharist, the continual outreach of the Body of Christ, and a better understanding of the Theology of the Body as a means of appreciating the gift of the human body as a dwelling place for the Lord. My passion and fascination with these three areas of my faith helped me to realize what God has been calling me to do all this time, The Catholic Fitness Coach to help Catholics fall in love with the good, true and beauty of their and get fit. I start at where they are broken to rebuild their bodies from the ground and revitalize their lives from the inside out.