Jess Neary
Full Draft
A Top 100 radio station played softly in my ears as I tried to focus on the music instead of the blaring noises filling my head. I was losing feeling in my limbs as I tried to stay perfectly still, just like the doctor had asked. The IV was pulling on my skin though, and my view of a grey ceiling five inches from my face wasn’t helping my boredom. Then the music stopped, and the voice of the MRI technician blared in my ears.
“Okay Jessica, now I need you to hold your breath until I say stop okay?”
I wasn’t sure if they could hear my reply, but I said “Okay” just in case.
I held my breath over and over again as the machine beeped and buzzed, taking pictures of my heart. After the first few times, I began focusing on the specific noise pattern, knowing which beeps would happen before I could relax. My eyes would water, and my lungs begged for air as I lay in that cramped space. The worst, however, was yet to come.
Suddenly the voice came on again. “Alright Jessica now we’re going to do the stress test.”
All I could do was nod, even though they couldn’t see it. Soon I felt a rush of cold the drug as it filled my veins, spread up my arm, and to the rest of my body. My heart began beating faster, even though I should have had a resting heart rate. As the last strain of ice left my hand, my chest rose in short breaths and I could hear the thump of my pulse in my eardrums. It was highly uncomfortable, the idea of panting without so much as lifting a finger was strange and my longing to be done with the test increased tenfold. I wanted to get out of the MRI machine. I pleaded in my head for the people behind the glass to make it stop. I didn’t want to hold my breath anymore, I didn’t want to poked and prodded with needles. After two hours, I felt the tug from my shallow bed slowly moving into the iridescent lights of the hospital room, and the technicians helped me sit up. As I gingerly walked out of the room, my mom was waiting for me. I wanted so badly to leave the hospital, but I knew I still had three more tests to do. So instead, I hugged her and we made our way back to the cardiology unit.
I was ten years old when I had my first MRI, and I have done that test every year since along with various others, all recording how healthy my heart is.
When I was ten months old, I was diagnosed with Kawasaki’s disease, a very rare heart disease that usually affects children from one to five years old. The disease caused four aneurisms to form on the coronary arteries of my heart. Today, two still can potentially affect me if I do not take daily medication of Coumadin and aspirin. Coumadin is an anticoagulant, or blood thinner, so my blood does not clot and cause me to have a heart attack.
Doctor Minich was the pediatric cardiologist who correctly diagnosed me in Salt Lake City, Utah, after I had already been on life support and taken off without a real treatment. She saved my life.
After visits every three months for the first two years of my life, Doctor Minich told my parents that I should be able to live a normal and happy life, free of limitations concerning physical activity and virtually any other aspect. She said I didn’t have any physical restrictions, but that I should gauge it myself on a case-by-case basis. Today, physical exercise can sometimes be brutal simply because I can’t continue more than a certain amount of time without catching my breath.
In high school, I played varsity volleyball, but every time there was a running workout, I’d fall behind. If I stopped to catch my breath, my heart was pounding and I sounded like I was hyperventilating. The other girls would look down on me, thinking I was making an excuse to get out of a difficult practice, and I was always ashamed of not being able to perform as an equal. In college, I prefer working out alone, taking my time and making sure I never have to explain myself and slow others down in the process.
When I went in for my annual checkup when I was sixteen, Doctor Minich told me I would need to take certain steps if I ever decided to get pregnant down the road, and that drugs and alcohol could be dangerous. At sixteen, none of this bothered me and when I was eighteen, I said goodbye for the last time, needing an adult cardiologist.
I have been taking Coumadin every day for nineteen years. My mom would bring me the pills every night before bed with a glass of water and whenever I went to a camp, I had a pillbox that she would give to the camp counselor. It was only when I left for college that I finally had to start taking my medication by myself regularly and I realized I had never asked many questions as to what this drug can do to me. According to the FDA Medication Guide, I’m not supposed to drink alcohol, eat “leafy greens” due to the large amount of vitamin K that can reduce the effectiveness of the drug, and even cranberry juice could be potentially hurtful. Serious side effects include the death of skin tissue. On top of that, the article states, “Coumadin can cause death or birth defects to an unborn baby. Use effective birth control if you can get pregnant.” Coumadin can also cause bleeding to a child if they are breastfeeding, and shouldn’t be taken for the serious risks or carefully monitored.
I had no idea the medication I took could cause serious damage to the fetus of my child if I was ever to get pregnant. I take birth control, but what happens if there was a slip up someday and I did indeed get pregnant and didn’t know it? After doing research, according to heart-disease.emedtv.com, the FDA also says that I could potentially have a miscarriage or stillbirth, while the fetus could have severe problems such as birth defects, blindness, mental retardation, brain or spinal problems, prematurity, and excessive bleeding (in both fetus and the mother). The site goes on to say, “The risks appear to be greatest when Coumadin is taken early in the pregnancy (weeks six through nine), although exposure at any time during pregnancy could lead to devastating outcomes.”
As I read the document listing all of the things Coumadin could do to a child, I was stunned. The thought of causing such pain and unfair treatment to an unborn child was unthinkable, and I didn’t want any part of it. On top of that, as I said before, Coumadin is a blood thinner, and doctors take extreme precautions for any type of medical procedure to make sure I don’t bleed too much. When I was fourteen, I had a surgery to get my adenoids out in my nose. I was in the hospital for two days after to make sure I didn’t have any unforeseen bleeding. Two weeks prior to this “walk-out” procedure, I had to start giving myself twice-daily shots as a replacement to the Coumadin. I cried every time I stuck the needle in my side, not because I hated needles, but because the aching pain the meds left after I was done.
This all comes before the actual birth, in which my life would also be at risk with the potential of bleeding to death, or the amount of exertion on my heart that could potentially lead to a heart attack.
So even if I was going to get pregnant at some point in my life, would I be giving myself shots twice every day for nine months? The other possibility would be to have heart surgery, take out the two remaining aneurisms, and be done with the Coumadin all together. It was never discussed with my pediatric cardiologist simply because I was stable, there was no need to take me off the medication when I was doing so well.
Recently, there was a new drug released called Pradaxa that is also an anticoagulant, but does not work with vitamin K (which is needed for blood to clot) like Coumadin. Instead, it directly inhibits the thrombin protein to stop clots from forming. Merriam Webster defines it as “a proteolytic enzyme that is formed from prothrombin and facilitates the clotting of blood by catalyzing conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin.” This basically means that it facilitates blood clotting. The Pradaxa site does warn against getting off the drug in case of a medical or dental procedure, but does not include pregnancy.
This (finally) gets me to the point of being considered in the abortion debate. According to Roe v. Wade, I am not, although many conservatives still disagree. The Roe v. Wade case was brought on by a pregnant single woman (Roe), who challenged Texas’ criminal abortion laws. She won, and allowed legal abortion for women. Before this case, there were exceptions for women whose life would be in danger, and I still fall into that category (Cornell).
Sadly, there are people in the world who can’t see past their simplistic view of the world in that a fetus is a living human being and should have the rights as such no matter what. I do see their point, but where is the humanity in bring a child into a world where they are practically ostracized because of a birth defect, or mentally handicapped because their mother didn’t know they were pregnant. My dad had four brothers, each with their own unique characteristics but one, my Uncle John, had a spinal defect and gave him a humped back. Everywhere the family went, people stared at Uncle John because he was different and he was treated his whole life as someone to avoid, even though he was an intelligent and kind man. My dad would never wish that life upon anyone, and I agree with him.
Now that I have a better understanding of what the medication could do to myself and a potential fetus, a thousand questions pop up. I did support the right to choose side of the abortion debate before, but now with me directly affected, I want to take steps to make sure I would never have to face that choice myself. Whether it is finding a new medication, having surgery, or even having a procedure to get my tubes tied, I never want to reach the point of having to choose abortion to save myself, and a life of hardship for a child.
Work Cited
"Coumadin and Pregnancy." Heart Disease Home Page. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.
<http://heart-disease.emedtv.com/coumadin/coumadin-and-pregnancy.html>.
Medication Guide: Coumadin Tablets. Federal Drug Administration. PDF.
"PRADAXA SAFETY INFORMATION." PRADAXA. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.pradaxa.com/pradaxa-safety-profile.jsp>.
"Roe v. Wade." LII. Cornell University, 13 Dec. 1971. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZS.html>.
"Thrombin." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thrombin>.
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