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OnJuly 18 2018, my then 6 month pregnant daughter, Terrina Coleman went to the Port St Lucie Medical Center in Port St Lucie Florida because of severe leg discoloration and painful swelling. Moms always know when something is wrong and she definitely knew something was wrong... however, the hospital discharged her even citing on her papers her diagnoses was "left leg swollen, blue, & cold" they told her to watch her sodium intake, stay hydrated, & she'd be ok. So she went back to her normal life - working (being on her feet). On July 23rd Terrina went to work and her leg was 3x bigger than the other, black and blue, incredibly veiny and she was in tremendous pain. After working her full shift, two of her coworkers forced her to go to a different hospital & thank God she did. Terrina went to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center where she was immediately given a Vascular Doppler on her left leg where the tech found 4 blood clots, one being the largest blood clot ever reported in a pregnant person. One particular clot went from her knee all the way up to her femoral vein causing excruciating pain and eventually her ability to walk. The next stop for that clot to go would have been her heart and lungs causing a pulmonary embolism resulting in the death of Terrina & her unborn baby. Terrina met with several doctors all who declined doing the surgery because they didn't think they would have success & both Terrina and her baby would lose their life. Terrina had the option to remove the limb which obviously she couldn't handle hearing these things all at once.. although she knew she would do whatever she needed for the survival of her baby. Finally after 3 days they found a surgeon willing to perform a thrombectomy on her leg but with an ultrasound machine (this has never been done before - usually they use an x ray machine but they couldn't because of her baby) The risks outweighed the reward so the doctor told Terrina it would be a lot safer and give her daughter a better chance at survival if she did this surgery awake - so not only did she do this surgery awake, but she did it with 0 pain medication. Only a little numbing agent on the area they would insert the catheter. The surgery was expected to last no longer than 1 hour and ended up being an over 4 hour procedure because the clot was a lot more dangerous than they thought. The doctor thought the clot would be like jello and easily suck out - however it was actually like concrete and almost impossible to get out. They had to take a balloon and stick it into the femoral vein and blow up the vein in order to scrape out as much of the clot as they could. Unfortunately the clot was there for over 2 weeks - meaning the other hospital missed it. Sadly, all of the clot couldn't be removed because the doctor felt he was reaching a danger zone as far as Terrina and her unborn babies lives were concerned. Terrina has a long road to recovery, still unable to walk. She is so strong and it's devastating to see her this weak. The doctors aren't sure on her mobility as they couldn't remove all of the clot. They plan to remove the rest once her daughter is born but absolutely will not do surgery again while she is pregnant. Terrina is self injecting lovenox into her leg 1x a day for the remainder of her pregnancy and will be on blood thinners for the rest of her life. She has such a high risk case of developing life threatening clots again that she is advised not to do alot of the activities she loves because her risk for injury will result in internal bleeding causing another blood clot. Terrina hasn't worked in over a week and doesn't know when she will be able to go back because she is still unable to walk. Her boyfriend has also not worked his full workweek as he has been commuting back and forth from the hospital to care for Terrina & their 3 dogs. If anyone knows her, you know she is one of the most active people and takes pride in her occupation & the active lifestyle she had before all this happened. Her hospital bills are over 80k already and she's still hospitalized so it will only go up from here. Terrina now has a rare case of Post-Thrombotic Syndrome which is lifelong. I'm asking for any donation at all, as Terrina just moved into a new house, relocated on a job promotion, & is now 25 weeks pregnant with my miracle Granddaughter Izabella.
Truly anything helps.
Truly anything helps.