My Diagnosis.

On February 1st, 2024 my life changed. I was experiencing severe pain in my right arm. It was so bad that I barely slept that whole week. However, I thought I slept on it wrong so I didn't tell anyone. One day my laptop stopped working so I made an appointment with Geek Squad to try and figure out what was going on. I finished up my last class for the day and drove home because Best Buy was near my house. However, I was barely able to make it home. It was so hard for me to drive because my arm was in so much pain. I told my mom and showed her my arm. My arm was hard as rock and all the veins were popping straight out. My mom is a nurse and I instantly saw the terror in her eyes. She rushed me to urgent care and almost instantly I was hooked up to an IV and sent down for several tests. I had a CT scan with infusion, several blood tests, and an examination by the doctor. After all of that, he came in to tell us the results. I got diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS). Essentially, I had a massive blood clot in my subclavian vein, which is a vein in your arm that supplies blood to your heart. I also had a blood clot in my right lung and a blood clot in my left lung.

My mom tried to hold back her tears, but she couldn't. This is a memory that will always haunt me because it is never easy to see your parents cry. I was put on blood thinners immediately to thin my blood to still be able to flow to my heart. Even though my blood began to flow better since it was thinned, it was not a permanent solution.

I met with many different types of doctors to try to figure out why this happened and what the next steps would be. The scariest doctor I had to visit was the oncologist. Being tested for cancer is something I will never forget. However, they needed to rule out this possibility. By God's grace, all the tests came back negative but this was still very scary for me. Anyone out there who has gone through cancer, had a loved one go through cancer or simply had the scare of having cancer knows what this feeling is like.

This condition is very rare in someone who does not play baseball, which I do not. To this day, all the doctors can't tell me why this happened to me. I ended up having 3 surgeries as a result of this condition. My first surgery was in February 2024, the second in June 2024, and the third in July 2024. The second surgery was the biggest, and the most invasive. I ended up having to have my 1st rib removed, and two muscles in my neck removed. As a result of all these surgeries, I had to go to physical therapy for several months. It was a lot of hard work but in the end, I was able to regain 80% mobility.

The lesson and advice in this story is that you need to focus on God and not the storm you are in. Even if the storm is long, it will pass one day. I know this is so hard to believe and it is easy to let those intrusive thoughts win. Storms can cloud our judgement, our thoughts, and even our beliefs but one day the light will shine through. If you are in a storm, I am praying for you. You are not alone in this storm because God is there helping you overcome it.