During her senior year in college, this nurse in Ohio suffered from a blood clot in her brain, which was caused by her birth control, and that led to intensive medical treatment. She also went through an intense pregnancy scare with her second child. These experiences have shaped her views on reproductive health. She is now on the board of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and has been a part of the movement to put a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the November 2023 Ohio ballot.
“Ohio had a trigger ban that went into effect, like, immediately, like within hours of Dobbs being decided that said that a woman could not have an abortion, uh, after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is about six weeks. And I remember thinking, like, that is so messed up, that’s so messed up– I have to do something. I have to do something.”
ANNOTATIONS
Learn More [2]: “Birth Control Methods: Types of Birth Control,” Planned Parenthood, accessed May 10, 2024.
Learn More [3]: Corinne O’Keefe Osborn, “Benefits of Birth Control: 10 Advantages Beyond Preventing Pregnancy,” Healthline, July 26, 2018.
Learn More [4]: “Birth Control: Your Questions, Answered,” Mayo Clinic, May 10, 2023.
Learn More: “What Are the Side Effects of the Birth Control Pill?,” Planned Parenthood, accessed May 6, 2024.
Learn More [2]: Ana Gotter, “Birth Control Side Effects: Risks and Long-Term Safety of the Pill,” Healthline, August 3, 2018.
Learn More [3]: MaryAnn De Pietro, “Long-Term Effects of Birth Control: Is It Safe to Use Indefinitely?,” Medical News Today, November 29, 2023.
Learn More: Emily Miller, “Yaz Lawsuits: Blood Clot, Heart Attack & Stroke Claims,” Drugwatch.com, September 5, 2023.
Learn More [3]: Jim Edwards, “Did You Know the FDA Recalled Bayer’s Yaz Contraceptive? Neither Did Anyone Else,” CBS News, May 6, 2010.
Learn More [4]: “Woman Receives $14 Million Verdict in Yasmin Prescription Case,” Relias Media, July 1, 2014.
Learn More: Deepa Shivaram, “Abortion Wasn’t Always the Politically Charged Issue It Is Today,” NPR.org, May 4, 2022.
Learn More [2]: Anna North, “How Abortion Became a Partisan Issue in America,” Vox, April 10, 2019.
Learn More [3]: Andy Sullivan, “Explainer: How Abortion Became a Divisive Issue in U.S. Politics,” Reuters, June 24, 2022.
Learn More [4]: Kerry Breen, “Who Voted to Overturn Roe v. Wade and Who Voted to Uphold It,” TODAY.com, June 24, 2022.
Learn More [5]: “Interactive Map: US Abortion Policies and Access After Roe,” Guttmacher Institute, accessed May 3, 2024.
Learn More [2]: “NIH-Funded Study Identifies Benefits, Risks of Treatments for Pregnancy of Unknown Location,” National Institutes of Health, August 3, 2021.
Learn More [3]: Lauren Hibler Carlos and Olga Grechukhina, “When a Pregnancy Fails Early,” Contemporary OB/GYN, March 23, 2017.
Learn More [4]: Krissi Danielsson, “How a Viable or Nonviable Pregnancy Is Diagnosed,” Verywell Family, November 2, 2022.
Learn More: “Birth Control Options: Things to Consider,” Mayo Clinic, accessed May 6, 2024.
Learn More [2]: “Birth Control Methods: Types of Birth Control,” Planned Parenthood, accessed May 10, 2024.
Learn More [3]: Ana Gotter, “What Is Female Sterilization and How Does It Work?,” Healthline, September 27, 2018.
Learn More [4]: “Vasectomy,” Mayo Clinic, February 9, 2023.
Learn More [5]: “Who Shouldn’t Take the Pill?,” University of Mary Washington: Student Health Center, accessed May 10, 2024.
Learn More [2]: Carter Sherman, “Woman Who Sued Texas for Abortion Left State to Have Procedure after ‘Hellish’ Week,” The Guardian, December 11, 2023.
Learn More [3]: Elaine Howley and Katie Bourque, “What to Know About Termination of Pregnancy for Medical Reasons,” US News & World Report, July 18, 2022.
Learn More [4]: Ava Sasani, “Kate Cox Case: What Led to the Texan Fleeing the State for an Abortion?,” The Guardian, December 12, 2023.
Learn More: Heidi Moawad, “What to Know About a Blood Clot in the Brain,” Verywell Health, July 22, 2023.
Learn More [2]: “Craniectomy: Surgery to Relieve Pressure,” Cleveland Clinic, April 13, 2023.
Learn More [3]: “Brain Injury: The Road to Recovery,” UC Health, March 18, 2022.
Learn More [4]: “Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (CVST),” Johns Hopkins Medicine, August 8, 2021.
Learn More [5]: “Understanding Brain Injury: A Guide for the Family” (Mayo Clinic, 2008).
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Dan Swern
Interview conducted Remotely
July 13, 2023
Transcription by Chrissy Briskin
Annotations by Ainsley Fisher
00:00
Uh, today is July 13, 2023, it’s 10:07 am, Eastern Standard Time. Uh, this is Dan Swern conducting a virtual interview over zoom with–
[Redacted]
[Redacted], thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Whenever you are ready, please feel free to start from the beginning.
Okay, the beginning was the day I was born (laughter), [in] 1987. I was born in, uh, [Redacted], Tennessee at [Redacted] Hospital. I was born to just, like, two, like, upper middle class, um, parents. My dad is an engineer, my mom, uh, got a degree in accounting. Both of them went to [University]. Uh, my– I have an older brother who’s two years older than me. We’re almost exactly two years apart. And my childhood was just pretty typical. Um, except for the fact, probably, that we moved a lot. Um, my dad’s job was in the natural– he was a natural resource engineer, something like that, but essentially he worked in the coal industry as an engineer for coal companies, which now are almost an extinct type of business. So when he was in college they were offering, I mean he was going to be an engineer, and that was a huge business back when he was, uh, in college, and they were offering, like, big scholarships if you were gonna go into that type of engineering, and so he did and, uh, had a– a– a very good career, but a lot of the companies he worked for would get bought and sold and so we, uh, moved from Tennessee to Indiana, and I was there during my kindergarten into first grade? That was just like a typical suburb. I had some friends, uh, I remember specifically having an Indian friend whose mom got me a sari, which I still have. And, um, it was like not– it was typical, like, midwest, like, mostly white, uh, but I had– I had another friend who was Asian and I had– she gave me, like, a little origami doll, which I also still have. I always remember those two friends 'cause I still have the things they gifted me. And then we moved from Indiana to Texas. We were there for not even a year, and what I specifically remember about living there were all of the– were all of the, um, stray dogs. There were lots of, like, stray dogs, and there were lots of just dogs people would leave off leash and out of yard. Um, we were in, um, [city]. I had– that was very diverse, which was really neat. Uh, a lot of my friends, I mean the makeup of my elementary school was like a third Black, a third Hispanic, a third white, which I thought, looking back now, was really good. And– but I just really remember the dogs. I like animals, uh, I have like, good memories of friends with– one had, one of my friends had a Great Dane and a Pomeranian both. So she had this huge dog and this little tiny, like, poofy, cute little dog, and also there was a dog in our neighborhood that would walk around that was owned by somebody. But he was a big Rottweiler and looked really scary but was just super sweet, and because of Buster I always wanted to have big dogs when I grew up 'cause we had– we grew up with lots of animals as well. We had a dog when we lived in Tennessee and a cat, and then we moved with just the cat to Texas 'cause the dog stayed back in Tennessee, 'cause she was a, um, golden that just needed space and had like a dog friend that lived in– maybe it was partially that my parents didn’t want to haul two animals, I’m not sure, but we moved with our cat Jasmine and then didn’t hear any of the other animals– oh actually, that’s not true. In Indiana, I believe that’s when we got our first cocker spaniel and then we took, uh, our cocker spaniel and our cat then to Texas, and in Texas that’s where we got our– I– there was a little Shih–Tzu dog that was a stray, that they said that they were going to take him to the pound and he was older and he would most likely be put down if he, uh, went to the pound, 'cause he was not so adoptable, and so I cried and asked my parents if we could keep him, and we did, and he was named Sparky. So we got another dog and then also another cat.
5:20
Uh, in Texas 'cause, again, there were a lot of animals. That’s what I remember from my time in Texas. And then we went from Texas to Colorado. We lived in [Redacted], Colorado which is outside of Denver, small town. My memory of [Redacted], Colorado includes, like, dirt roads, and my memory’s also, um, colored by, like, my parents’ retelling of it there, and the other part of, like, the Colorado experience, according to my parents, was terrible public schools (laughter). But it was– it was beautiful, and we would go hiking; we got more animals there. My brother got a bird and I got a rabbit and, uh, we were there up until I was almost middle school-ish, and then we moved to Ohio, to [City]. And I stayed in [City] through– all the way through high school and, um, I’m trying to remember is there anything specific about Colorado, aside from like the beautiful mountains and more pets, nothing. My brother broke his arm while we were there and we– yeah it was just pretty, and I remember one of our cats, 'cause we had two at the point, um, would chase away dogs that came in our yard. The first cat we had that we had taken all the way from Tennessee with us was a long haired cat, she was very friendly, very sweet, and then the one that I picked out in Texas was like a hunter, um, and I chose her because she was, uh, so fast. I remember playing with the kittens that I was looking at, my parents said I could get one, and like throwing balls with them, and she was the one that would get to the ball first and, um, so she would, she would, like, catch birds. She caught a hummingbird actually one time, which horrified my dad. But she would, uh, scare away the dogs that came in our yard, 'cause there were two malamutes out in Colorado that would come over and harass our other cat, and that cat would, uh, she was a black cat that I named Angel, which is funny, and she would chase him out of our yard. She was, she was cool. So then we moved with all of our pets to [City]. I was there, um, for middle school and high school and it was just another, like, typical suburb, upper middle class. I had friends and, um, my parents were just, you know, typical. They weren’t, you know, it was like– everyone has their problems, but like I wanted for nothing and I was taken care of and– and my older brother is, like, intellectually gifted and he– when he went off to college, like, got offers for scholarships and all this stuff, and interviewed everywhere, and he ended up going to [University], uh, because he wanted to do music education, because I think it was probably the one thing he wasn’t great at was like singing, and so he was very interested in pursuing the music path, um, ended up– he ended up switching majors and now he’s a surgeon, which is more fitting. But at the time, that’s what he did. So he went to [University] and was trying to recruit me there. Um, because I was like the little sister and I was, you know, not as naturally smart as him. I mean I worked hard in school, I got good grades, um, and– but I wasn’t– like I wasn’t a National Merit kid. So he was recruiting me, and I always looked up to him, and I went and visited [University], and it’s beautiful. The campus is, like, gorgeous and I considered it, and then I went to Ohio State, 'cause I knew I wasn’t gonna go out of state. I was not going to get a bunch of academic scholarships like my brother and I didn’t want to, like, I didn’t want my college education to be a financial burden. My parents, I was lucky enough that my parents were going to pay for it, but I still wasn’t gonna, um, I didn’t want to, you know, have it be costly. So– and I didn’t really have any interest in going out of state, my friends, a lot of my friends were gonna stay for college, I had a lot of friends at UC and so I thought, you know, I’ll stay. I just wanted to stay in state.
10:15
So, I looked at Ohio State as well, my first impression of Ohio State was that it was way too big and– but then I kept visiting. I went back for, like, a few more visits to both [my brother’s university] and Ohio State, and for whatever reason I started to just, like, like [my brother’s university] less and less, not that I didn’t like it, but I just started to like it less, or maybe it was just that I started to like Ohio State more as I would visit. And I ended up deciding to go to Ohio State. Part of it was because I was thinking I was gonna probably go into nursing, and they have a more reputable program at Ohio State than at [my brother’s university], so that factored in. But also I just, for whatever reason, started liking, like, the big school. It just seemed like you could go there and there were options to do almost anything, and you could just be who you are without, you know, it seemed more like it would be liberating to go there. I remember thinking that, you know, it could be really cool to go to a place where you are just one of many. Um, so I did. And I loved it. Undergrad was the best experience. It was fun, I did– I did, um, after my first year, I applied to nursing school, 'cause you have to go through the prerequisites and all that, and I got into the nursing program there, which is, which I’m lucky 'cause it was a great career, it has been a great career for me and I. I– Funny thing was that I had a boyfriend all the way through, well probably from my junior year of– of high school, um, all the way into my senior year of college. So almost the whole way through my college experience but he went to U of M which is really funny, so we were like that Ohio State/Michigan couple which is– so I would go up to Michigan to visit, we would go to football games, and that was always funny too. I love U of M, I’m not a Michigan hater even though I am obviously an OSU alum and fan. Uh, Michigan’s campus is pretty, it’s a great school, and he would come down and whenever I would– I always remember going up to Michigan and wearing Ohio State stuff when we would play them and people weren’t very– you know, they weren’t super mean, they would say things, but whenever he would come down and wear Michigan gear, he would get harassed, and I always remember thinking like, “Man, we are really terrible fans.” (Laughter) No really, but I remember thinking “we’re die hard,” and part of the reason it was explained to me later, the reason the rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State is felt more at Ohio State is because we don’t have an in-state rival and U of M does. U of M has Michigan State, so they have an in-state rival to focus on and we don’t. That was the explanation. 'Cause I always remember thinking, “I wonder why we’re so much more forceful about our, uh, about this, uh, rivalry than they are,” and that was how it was explained to me, and it makes sense. So it was just fun. There were lots of like, of course there was school work, but what I remember of undergrad is mostly just having fun. Um, like having friends and freedom and, you know, doing the typical college stuff. Of course you’re like, when did I turn– of course you’re underage drinking some and then you turn 21, you have your 21st birthday when you’re in college (laughter) it was just really fun. Um, the– but in college is when, um, like the biggest, well, not at this point anymore, but one of the biggest, uh, events of my life happened. I was in my senior year and so, um, almost done. I was graduating in– when did this happen? I was graduating, I was supposed to graduate in, like, June of 2009. Uh, because, at that time, Ohio State was still on quarters, now they’re on semesters, but we were on quarters when I was a student there. And I was living with– I was living off campus, 'cause I was a senior with three other friends who were also nursing students.
15:34
And it was, um, a Wednesday I think? And I just had– I had to take an exam that morning, which I did, but I think it was the night before so probably Tuesday night or maybe even prior that, maybe it was Tuesday. I started getting a bad headache and I just figured it was just a headache. I don’t know. And then up until that Wednesday morning I had to take an online test, I don’t even know why they allowed that to happen. I didn’t cheat, I forget you had to lock your screen, I don’t know, it was something, but I didn’t have to go into class to take this exam, which was good 'cause I had a horrible headache, and I was looking up– I knew it was bad enough that I was looking up signs and symptoms of meningitis. I was like, “Maybe I have meningitis.” It was just a weird headache. And so then I took my test, I don’t remember how I did, I think I passed, I mean I passed it but I don’t remember, and I also remember I just felt worse and worse, um, so I called my best friend who I did not live with, um, but I called her and just said that I didn’t feel good, like, so she came over and I was like, “Maybe if I go on a run, that will help,” 'cause usually it does. And we did and she, I remember her stopping me and saying, “Okay [Redacted], we’re going back 'cause you’re like, kind of like, shuffling your feet and, like, you don’t look like you’re into it.” And so we went back, and I think I remember her asking me if I wanted to see– go see my doctor, 'cause I think maybe at that point I had started throwing up, but I told her yes. I was like, “Yes I think I should.” So I think I remember that conversation, but for sure after that I don’t remember anything. Uh, but this was all relayed to me so, like, all the rest of it up until like the point– another– I’ll tell you like, “Oh yeah, this is when I remember again.” So I don’t remember, but was told that she took me to my doctor, I went back to see my doctor. My doctor was just off campus, like, and it was who I had been seeing, um, since I had moved, like, up, 'cause actually my parents had moved from [Redacted] up to, like, the Columbus area right when I was going to Ohio State, so– 'cause it was again something for my dad’s job. So they, when I started at Ohio State, were living, like, within thirty minutes of the university, which I didn’t love, 'cause I was like, “Well here I am going to college, my parents are moving closer.” It’s like [unclear] when you get your freedom, but it ended up working out. So I had gotten a primary care that, like, you can go to campus, your campus health, like, whatever, but I was still– I think I was still on my parents’ insurance, yes that’s what it was. So I went to the doctor that I had kind of, um, been using since I moved up with my parents to Columbus, and we did that just before I started at school. And that doctor said I had the flu or something? And then sent me home. And so then my best friend, um, was like, “okay,” took me back to my apartment and dropped me off and then– and then my roommates said that—like the story that was told—that, like, tipped them off that I probably should be seen by a medical professional again was that night they said that I was, they found me in one of my roommates’ rooms with the, um, light on, like in my roommate’s room with the light on and, oh this light turned off, and my shirt off? And I think the explanation for why my shirt was off was 'cause I, um, because I had been throwing up, and I’m also just throwing up on myself, and took it off and then went into my– that’s what I think, that’s not what they said, but I assume 'cause I had been throwing up at that point. I threw up on myself and then came into my roommate’s room, sat in her desk chair and then stared into her closet and they– that tipped them off like something is wrong with her. So they took me, one of them, like, got me in a car and just took me to OSU’s ER. They called my best friend and told her like, “We’re taking [Redacted] to the emergency room.” So they take me and my friend meets them there and they, like, we waited for I don’t know, I mean a waiting room in the ER is always full. Not always, but often.
20:57
And they, um, we waited, they, I think they called my parents. My best friend did, and they– they– hold on one second. They, yeah, my best friend called my parents, 'cause my mom said, “oh yeah, when [Redacted] called us,” like my dad came and met [Redacted], my best friend, um, and my mom stayed home, but my mom said I remember making, like, putting a towel down and putting a bucket by the bed that was, like, in their house, their extra room that I would stay in if I was going to their house, thinking that I would come home with just like the flu. And, uh, they– they, did a bunch of tests, like, when I finally got in, well 'cause their initial thought was that I was on drugs. Of course, right? Like, I’m a college-aged kid, like, but it’s only Wednesday, they were asking my friend like, you know, “Did you guys go out? What did– did you guys–” and then my friend’s like, “No we literally took exams this morning, like, we haven’t been out, blah, blah, blah.” Like, of course that is a reasonable differential for, like, an ER doctor, like, here’s a young college person, like, change in mental status, like, level of consciousness, probably took something. And so then my friends were like, “No, no, no, we literally took exams, we don’t know why she’s like this.” And so they started doing tests, they did like a lumbar puncture, that was weird, like, drew labs, those were weird, did a CT scan, um, I think they did it with contrast so they could see the vasculature in my brain and, like, that came back real weird, and they were like, “Maybe, like, it’s this weird, and it’s just like a normal variant,” but anyways they were like– they admitted me to the ICU, so then my mom– my dad has to call my mom like, “[Redacted]’s not coming home,” like, “she’s going to the ICU,” and I was in the ICU for I don’t know like two or three weeks because I had like a complicated stay. What they ended up finding is that I had a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis is what it’s called. It is a blood clot not in the arterial system of my brain but in the Venus system, so what that meant is that I was not able to get, like, blood out of my head, like normally your blood circulates, like, arterially, and then once your brain takes what it needs from your blood, the blood leaves, like, your venous system and all that stuff, but my blood was like getting backed up in there, so the pressure was building up in my head and that was what was causing my, like, symptoms. And the problem with that is like when you get, like, too much fluid in your head, your brain gets squished, and if it gets too squished you can, like, herniate your brain and that’s when you die. Like, that’s when you have brain death is when your brain gets pushed out of the skull, like through the opening in the bottom. So they’re trying to, like, fix that, and at the time, um, the way that they did that was, like, uh, interventionally, like, through like your, my blood vessels. They put a big needle in, like, my groin and then put a wire up all the way, like, through my heart and into my brain and tried to get the clot out, and I guess it was big enough that it was, like, obstructing multiple exits, so like it was like in the main vein that drains your brain is what they say. The Venu– what was it, the vein of Galen, or something like that and it, they were just trying to open up a path for the blood to exit. And so they did that, like one time, and then they, like, left the catheters in and sent me back to the ICU.
25:19
And, like, my– the pressures in my head didn’t come down, so then they, like, took me back, did it again, um, and same thing. I kept reclotting, and by this time they had, like, multiple monitors in my skull. They had one called a BOLT which is where it goes through your bone but it sits outside of your brain and the covering of your brain and measures pressures, and also another one called a ventriculostomy which is drain that goes through your skull into your brain tissue, um, into like one of the sinuses so then it can, like, drain fluid out of your head that way. So there’s like a literal tube coming out of your head and draining into, like, a measuring device so they can, like, see how much fluid they’re taking off of your brain. And so they had those things in and then, um, but again I kept, like, reclotting, like, twice I did that. So they did, I don’t remember, it must’ve been after the second time, they tried– they gave me a medication called, uh, it’s like it just goes by– it is– it go– we call it by its abbreviation, which is TPA. And the name of it is like really Tissue Plasminogen Activator, which is a medication that, um, like, dissolves clots essentially, so it just, like, they infuse it where there is a clot and it will, like, break down a clot. Your body has plasminogen inside of it already, but they’re just like giving you this stuff. But so anyways, they gave me that, and then the story was that they sent me back to the ICU after having given me that stuff, and luckily I had a really good nurse who was, like, taking care of me that night because, like, they brought my family back to see me after I had like gone for the clot evacuation, and my family came, they, um, they saw me, and then they went back to the waiting area or whatever, and I guess after my family came back to see me the nurse said she noticed that my breathing changed, like, I was breathing weird, but I was sedated or somnolent enough that, you know, I wasn’t talking, and she said she– 'cause I actually ended up working with these same nurses that took care of me, and she said she like popped open my eyes to like check my pupils, 'cause that’s part of a neuro assessment, and one of my pupils was just, like, blown, just like huge, on one side was just wide open, like, one black eye and, um, so she knew that something was wrong, obviously, and she called, and it’s like three in the morning or something crazy, 'cause all this stuff always happens in like the early hours of the morning and she, um, called. They took me for like an emerge– stat head scan and I had like a hemorrhage from the, um, from the, uh, from that stuff that dissolves clots caused me to have a bleed, and so then I’m having bleeding, so now not only is the pressure in my head high, but now it’s bleeding into there so they had to take me for an emergency craniectomy or craniotomy, it depends on, I don’t know, I don’t know, basically they take off the bone off of your head to relieve the pressure. So I had like long, blonde-ish hair at the time, and they shaved half of it off and did, uh, did the crani, and then they took me back with like half of my skull missing and half of my head has long hair and half of it is, like, gone and without a skull, and they sent me back to ICU, and I think at that point they said, well they induced me into a coma at some point, a Pentobarb, it’s like Pentobarbital which is a barbiturate, uh, try to help, and all that does is like reduce brain activity so that, like, less blood goes into head, 'cause your brain is not doing anything so that maybe that will help your pressure in your head, 'cause by then they had at least two failed attempts at getting this clot out. Like two times were, or one time where it reclotted and another time where it reclotted and then bled and so they said, um, they took– I remember the story is that they told my parents, like the neurosurgeons, um, and the neuromuscular guy told my parents like, “We’re going to try one more time to get this clot out and if it does not work there is nothing else we can do.” And this is now funny, but also not funny.
30:23
They– the story is that because my brother was there who was in medical school at the time and the story goes that my mom received this news and then like– then like– like, just like stumbled over to my brother and collapsed in his arms. So then– then they had to get– then they had to get a wheelchair to put my mom in and wheel her down to the emergency room (laughter) because she has, like, lost her mind at this point. And then– and then in the ER my brother said he went down, and we joke about it, my brother said he went down to the ER to check on her and he’s like, “Man, I had to go check on mom, meanwhile, like, you’re upstairs, like, they’re gonna take you down for your last procedure, like, they’re like, ‘we’re gonna try this one more time, if it doesn’t work.’” So they’re like, “Hey come say bye to your sister, 'cause this is like, like say bye 'cause it’s the last time we’re gonna try this– this– this intervention, and if we can’t get this clot out manually, like, there’s nothing else we can do, so like, let’s like–” My brother’s like, “I wanted to see you before you went down for your last procedure but then like mom’s getting wheeled away to the ER,” he’s like, “I said bye to you,” and then he went to the ER to visit my mom and he said, according to him, according to him he finds my mom– by the time he got down there in a dark room by herself just babbling about Tom Cruise, and the reason Tom Cruise is relevant to this story (laughter) my mom has always had beef with Tom Cruise because he told her, or because he said, and everyone might remember this, like, you might remember this, where he said, remember when Brooke Shields was trying to educate the public about postpartum depression? And people– and Tom Cruise said that postpartum depression wasn’t real, or something crazy like that. And the reason– and this is according to my mom later on, the reason she was babbling about Tom Cruise was because, upon being admitted to the emergency department, one of the first questions they asked her was like, “Are you a danger to yourself,” which is like what they have to ask, like, “Are you gonna kill yourself 'cause you’re– if you are, we’re gonna put you on precautions, we’ve got to take the forks out of the room, gotta get rid of the lamps, gotta get rid of the alcohol hand sanitizer stuff,” whatever. So she took offense to this question, 'cause she’s like, “The nurse who asked me had never been, was never a mother,” or something like that, or, like, something about, like, “You don’t understand 'cause you’re not a mom.” And then she must have been complaining to herself, as my brother enters the room, about people like that who don’t understand what it is to be a mother. And so she’s– but the funny thing was my brother’s like, “Yeah I just walk in and she’s, like, babbling on about Tom Cruise.” (Laughter) Anyway, so she ended up– she was fine and she ended up getting some valium or something and like being discharged eventually, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But, so then they, uh, they do the last, uh, the last, like, clot evacuation and it was, uh, they got just like– opened up just like a little collateral vein and hoped that that was enough, and, like, the story is, like, my family was in the room when I had gotten back to the ICU, I still have all the pressure monitors, like, connected to my head, so they knew, they could see the pressure in my head, like the numbers, and they had like, I don’t know if like they put me back on the Pentobarb or not, but they were just like waiting and hoping that, like, my pressures would like start to come down and they did. And, um, they– they started coming down and I, you know, there was like a lot of like stuff after that, like when I woke up basically, but, um, when the– I’m trying to think of– they also like did a lot of work up too 'cause obviously like, I’m young, I’m like a healthy person, like, what happened? Like why– why did she have this weird blood clot in her head, like I exercise, I don’t smoke, blah, blah, blah. So while I was in the ICU, they did, um, they did a bunch of work up, like I also have Raynaud’s, my fingers turn white when I get cold which is a, um, which is a– which can be part of an autoimmune profile, so they, uh, they worked me up for Lupus because, um, because of that.
35:00
And I– they, well they didn’t work me up for Lupus all the way, but they checked me for this thing called like Lupus Anticoagulant, which is what someone who has Lupus would have that would predispose them to getting clots, and that was negative, and then they checked me for like Antiphospholipid Syndrome, which is another thing you can have that can make you clot and, um, everything was negative. I mean all the test that they ran to try to figure out why this had happened, um, so so the consensus was like well the only thing that she has that like increases her risk of clot, not her lifestyle, it’s no test we have run has come back positive that would indicate that she has a disorder that would predispose her to clots. She doesn’t smoke, she’s not sedentary, which I guess is all part of lifestyle, so they– they just said it was from birth control, 'cause I was on Yasmin at the time. And so that’s what they said that that’s what it was from and, um, I remember– I remember the day that I was like taken off, like, sedation, like after the pressure in my head had come down. I was still intubated so I still had the breathing tube in, and I just remember them telling me like, “Don’t grab your tube, don’t touch your tube.” 'Cause usually if you’re– have a– have a tube in your– in your, in your windpipe it’s not comfortable, and people are always trying to pull them out. So, um, so I remember they– I remember just waking up like that, like, and they– they, uh, they took the tube out, and I remember coughing a ton and they put, like, special, gave me special type of oxygen to help me breathe and– 'cause they had edema in my throat, or swelling in my throat, from the tube that was in there. And then, then after I got that out, they– they– I couldn’t, like, talk, actually like I just couldn’t speak 'cause I like– no one could hear me 'cause it was like, I was like, had no voice, and they, so they brought my computer in for me to, like, type, and I remember flipping open the lid of my laptop and seeing like the outline of my head in the black screen and I was just like whispered, “My head is so misshapen,” 'cause I was like, “oh my God, my head!” 'Cause I didn’t have half my skull and it was just like this skull and then it’s like a dropdown and then was like weird, and my hair was gone because they had shaved it all off by then and I, uh, it ended up like the reason I couldn’t talk was because one of my vocal chords was paralyzed, which they thought was either because of the tube being in my throat or for so long, like, the breathing tube being in my throat for so long, or because when I had had that bleeding in my brain, my– the blood had had shifted my brain in my skull over to the left side and so then my, like, left brain was like smashed up against my skull, and I also had, like, right-sided weakness, which they thought, which would also explain like the shift, and then you’re left brain controls your right side, so I had right sided weakness, and my right vocal chord was paralyzed, they thought it was either from the tube or more likely because of like that shifting of my brain, and so I did a lot of like, uh, therapy, like I had to have in the hospital, I had to have physical therapy and speech therapy, and I couldn’t swallow, like I mean I could swallow, but every time I swallowed, because the vocal chord was paralyzed, I was like– I was like putting air into my– er putting whatever I was drinking was going into my lungs, because when you swallow normally, like, your vocal chords close, your epiglottis folds over vocal chords to, like, protect your lungs from anything you drink and so I– I was like so thirsty, I remember, oh my gosh. I remember wanting so badly to just drink something. And people would ask me, “Oh my gosh when you can eat again, like, what do you want?” 'Cause when you have a breathing tube in your throat, and you’re in a coma, you can’t eat, so they feed you like through a tube, like, they feed you, like, liquid food, and typically it goes, like, through a tube, like, through your nose and into your stomach, and they just give you nutrition that way and, um, I think they weren’t giving me nutrition for a little while because the other thought about when you have something wrong with your brain is that, like, your brain uses only, you brain can only use sugar as fuel, like, your brain doesn’t use protein to like do any type of, um, of like functioning.
40:04
But if you’re giving, like, sugar to a brain and it’s doing work, doing things like then you’re– if it’s doing any processes you’re going to have extra blood flow and blah, blah, blah, so but regardless I was like a skeleton by the time this was all done, and I also couldn’t eat because of my paralyzed vocal cord, even when the tube came out, so I had the tube like in my nose that was giving me nutrition, but I just remember wanting water. I wanted to drink so bad. They were– I was not dehydrated, I was getting IV fluid, but I would stare out of my room in the ICU at the nurse’s station and see them drinking their pops and think like, “I have to get water.” So I was like, at one point, like, climbing out of bed with the tube in my nose attached to this, like, to the thing that was giving me food and, like, going over to the sink and, like, getting water, and then I would, like, cough and the nurses would run in, and I would be in trouble, and then they put a bed alarm on me, so then I couldn’t get out without alarms going off, and anyways, so all these fun things. And then I would try to tell the nurse, “I’ll be good, can I just have a swab, just a swab with, like, a cup so I could dip the swab in the water and just wet my mouth?” And this one super sweet nurse who I was very close with after all this was like, “Yeah.” She, like, felt so bad for me so she gave me this little cup of water with a swab, and then she leaves the room, meanwhile I’m like chugging it. She said she knew that I was being bad and doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing because I chugged this water, and I’m trying to silently cough 'cause it’s going into my lungs, so I’m like coughing and she said– but I’m like stifling it so she can’t hear me and then, but she said– 'cause when you’re in the ICU, as a nurse you can have up to two patients, and she said she was with the other patient, but she has, like, the split screen on the monitor where she, like, sees my vital signs along with the patient that, like, she’s in the room with, she sees both of our vital signs, and she sees my heart rate just shoot up and she’s like watching this and she’s like, comes back in and she knows that I had drank the water, so then I can’t have that cup of water. Anyway, so that was what I remember vividly from my ICU time, was like wanting water so bad when I got up and people, again, would ask me, like, “What do you want to eat when you can finally have food?” And I was like, “I just want water. And so I– I ended up getting a PEG tube because I like, there was a long enough time where I couldn’t eat anything so they– they don’t want a tube in your nose for too long because, if the tube sits in your nose for long enough, it supposedly can wear away the, like, mucosa in your nose and, like, if it sits there, like, your nose isn’t supposed to have something in it for a long time and it had been in there a while. So what they do, is they take the tube out of your nose and then they, they basically like, uh, use an endoscope to go like into your stomach with a scope, they blow it up and they poke a hole from the outside of your stomach into your stomach and then just like put a tube externally, so then, like, you literally have just like a tube coming out of your abdomen and they feed you that way. So I got one of those and, um, and it wasn’t long after that that I finally, like, my vocal cord recovered, 'cause like the ENT doctors came to see me when I was in the ICU and, oh my God there were so many stories, but I remember, uh, I remember sitting in the chair, 'cause like they would get me out of bed in the ICU, 'cause they don’t want you to get, like, too deconditioned, by then I was like ninety two pounds, I’m like 5’7” and I remember sitting in the chair like I was still on tube feeding so that liquid food, the ENT doctor came in to talk to me about my vocal cord, about like how they could fix it, and I just remember like– am I allowed to curse, am I allowed to say curse words? Okay, it just makes it funnier (laughter). I remember sitting in the chair and they put a sheet under you, 'cause, you know, I was gross. And just like, he’s talking to me and I just remember thinking, like, as he’s speaking to me thinking like, “Oh I’m shitting myself right now.” 'Cause I had liquid in and liquid out. And I had no, I just couldn’t control it, so I literally pooped, like, in the chair as he’s talking to me about how (laughter) about my, uh, about my vocal cord and just, it’s so many things. I had so many tubes in my body, like, I had like tubes in my head, which they were taken out by the time I woke up, like, two tubes in my head, tube in my nose, eventually a tube out of my stomach, a tube in my bladder, supposedly because of this, like, diarrhea that I was having from the liquid tube, because I had a tube in my butt at one point, it’s called a Convatec, they do this in the ICU.
45:28
I had tubes everywhere. And anyway, so I finally like get all the tubes mostly out, I even got my– I think I was still in the ICU when I got my, they took the catheter out, so I had to like get up to the toilet, and, um, I was doing PT, and I was able to like drink, to have, like, like modified texture foods, they could like thicken liquids and I could have those, my vocal cord was recovering. They send me to the floor finally and I go there, the plan was to send me to Dodd Hall, which is like a rehab facility that’s associated with OSU hospital, but while I was in Dodd, or no, before I got to Dodd I was on the floor, I remember, I remember like doing like my– what I was supposed to do with physical therapy, like get out of bed, walk around the unit, just like try to get some strength back, and I remember walking around the unit and I was a nursing students while this was like going on, or I had been, this like put that on hold, but I remember walking around the unit and smelling something horrible and thinking, “Someone–“ I literally said to my friend, “somebody pooped themselves, like some patient around here pooped 'cause it smells bad.” I also had no filter 'cause I was somewhat brain damaged, not brain damaged, brain injured, so I just said whatever came to my mind. I was like, “Somebody pooped and needs to be cleaned up,” to my friend who was also a nursing student. She was with me, like she was there, like, through the whole thing and– and then like we go back to my room and the story’s like, I remember this actually, I remember just thinking to myself, I asked my friend [Redacted], “Are the nurses putting the medication in my PEG tube correctly?” The PEG tube was the tube that was going into my stomach. It’s a percutaneous endo gastric tube, something like that. And she’s like, “Yeah, why are you asking?” And I go, “Are the nurses putting the medication, are they giving you your meds through your PEG tube correctly?” And she’s like, “What are you talking about? I don’t have a PEG tube, [Redacted].” And then she’s like, “okay,” she’s a nursing student, she knows this means like I’m having mental status changes, and if you’re a neuro patient and you have changes in your mental status, you have to tell somebody 'cause like, I probably need a CAT scan or something like that. So she’s, like, told my mom, she’s like, “Hey she’s having mental status changes, I gotta tell the nurse.” My mom goes, “but she’s been saying good things all day, she said one thing wrong.” My mom was in denial again, right? 'Cause she can’t handle this, so [Redacted] goes like, “It doesn’t matter, I need to tell somebody, this is a mental status change, this could mean something bad.” So they go and tell the nurse, it ended up that I just had a really bad infection in my stomach from that tube that they put in, um, 'cause my fever, I ended up having a really high fever and, like, so then they had to, like, treat me with IV antibiotics, so it extended my stay in the hospital for longer, so I never ended up having to go to the rehab hospital. So, um, because I, like, was with physical therapy as an inpatient in the hospital and like I walked up a flight of stairs and they were like, “Yeah, you’re good to go to outpatient therapy.” So I went home, I went home, I had to wear a helmet everywhere I went. If you can imagine this. I’m 22 years old, I was not allowed to drive, I had to live with my parents again, I was missing half of my skull, if I went anywhere I had to have this giant helmet on. I was a sight to behold and the– like one of my best memories is like, um, well, when I finally got my PEG tube out and like I was ready to get it out, like, I could swallow, but they couldn’t take it out because, um, it has to like be in there for like a certain amount of time, so they could like actually adhere to your– to your abdominal wall so that it doesn’t like fall back into your abdomen with a hole in it and give you like peritonitis. So anyway, I remember going to the– the– the general surgeon who had put it in, going to his office at OSU, for him to take it out. And my mom came with me, but my mom had to medicate before she goes, so she’s taking her valium (laughter) and we’re going to the appointment, and like the whole, like, medical process for taking out a PEG tube is literally him putting like a hand, one of his hands braced against my abdomen and his other hand yanks it out. That’s how it comes out.
50:28
And my mom was there for it, and she’s like having a moment, 'cause it was kinda horrifying, and there it goes, it’s out and we walk home and my mom’s like, “Oh my God.” Like, she puts her sunglasses on, I’m kinda hunched over holding my stomach, 'cause it’s sore, and my dad– it’s true, my dad always tells me, like, he talks about like what a motley crew we were, 'cause we were walking out, I’m in a helmet hunched over, my mom’s wearing her sunglasses and one of the lenses had popped out, and she doesn’t even notice 'cause she’s high on valium (laughter) and she’s like, my dad’s like, “Man I can only imagine, like, we’re like a circus right now.” (Laughter) And then there was like so many other things when I got home, like, they tried to tell me I couldn’t drive, I had to take like a driving test, I was going to like outpatient physical therapy, and speech therapy, and occupational therapy, and so I was stuck at home, and my parents, like, before I got my skull back on, my parents didn’t want me to stay at home by myself, and they both worked, so they literally tried to hire a person I did not know to babysit me, and I’m 22 years old, and I was like, “Please can I just promise I won’t take my helmet off? I won’t take it off, I will sit on the couch until you get home.” Like, my friend [Redacted] was going to come when she could, in between classes, to like babysit me and I was okay with that, but please don’t hire, nothing against them but it was literally this Mennonite person that literally dog sat for my parents. They were asking this Mennonite lady who watched their dog to come sit with me, and I’m like, “Look, I get what’s going on,” and I was a little impulsive, and I did not like wearing my helmet, and I was like, “but I won’t fall,” and they just didn’t trust me. So the agreement after like I– a lot of protesting from me was like, “No I will not have a babysitter, can you just take me to my grandparents’ house,” 'cause my grandparents lived in [Redacted]. They lived on a farm, it was a farm, now it’s [Redacted], uh, but so they’re like, “okay.” So my parents, if [Redacted] couldn’t sit with me I would get dropped off at my grandparents’ house and then picked back up. I am 22 years old. And, um, anyway eventually it all, uh, it all resolved, like I got the PEG tube out, I got my skull back on, I went back to school, and that experience made me want to be an ICU nurse 'cause I had been a patient, I had been an ICU patient, I had a patient on the floor, and I was like, I want to do ICU. So I graduated late, I graduated December of 20– no yeah, December of 2009, so it was like six months late or something like that and, um, I started as a nurse in the ICU in 2010, and I always laugh 'cause it was like, “Yeah, they know exactly what happened to me and they still hired me.” No, 'cause I was able to complete school. I registered with the Office of Disability Services for extra testing time, but I was so impulsive still like, I could not sit. I was like I’m just taking these tests, like, I can’t sit here for like any longer than I have to. So I never actually took extra testing time, I think 'cause I had ADD still, or like I don’t know, but I passed everything and I, uh, ended up getting a job in the ICU that I was a patient at and they, uh, that was it, like, I ended up, um, meeting my husband, my now husband, that way. Like, he was a resident at the time, he was interested in critical care so he did a lot of extra rotations in the ICU, and the reason I remembered him is, 'cause when I came back as a nursing student, um, I had got– I had just gotten my skull put back on, so my head was very shaved, and I had, like, a, like, line down the center, which was, like, my scar and I, uh, had like this patch of hair that never grew back from all the contrast dye that they injected for the clot evacuations, but I remember, like, my preceptor who knew me from being a patient there, like, nobody questioned me when I was a nursing student finishing up rotations there with my shaved head. Like, everyone knew what happened but, like, anyone who didn’t know me, like my husband didn’t know me when– when he just knew that I was a nursing student with a shaved head and he thought I was, like, alternative or punk or something.
55:15
But– but he– he was just like very nice, I remember like, our– my preceptor, 'cause I was always– I would do like off shifts for my rotations and I was trying to– l like practice putting IVs, and he would go to the OR, 'cause he’s [sound cuts out] interested in doing critical care, so he could go to the OR and get us special IVs that they only have back there and he would bring them up and stuff, and it was just like, I thought it was really nice, um, 'cause I remember thinking, “What a nice guy.” 'Cause here I am, this bald nursing student, like, he doesn’t have to like, do anything, like, extra. He doesn’t have to be, like, nice or kind, but he was, and I remember him just in that context, oh, what a nice person. And then, um, when I started there as a nurse, my hair had grown back in, probably chin length, and I saw him again and I waved like, “Oh hi,” 'cause I remembered him, but he was like, “Yeah I didn’t quite remember, I didn’t recognize you.” And then I think he did eventually, um, like he knew who I was. And then, um, or that I had been that bald nursing student. And then when I was, uh, working there I, um, the nurses who had known me and had taken care of me,and also knew him were like, “Oh I think he likes you.” And like, “you shoul–'' this one nurse [Redacted] was from West Virginia and she took care of me a fair amount, and she’d be like “I think y’all should date.” And– and, like, made us exchange numbers, it was so awkward. And we did and that was how I ended up, like, that’s– now we’re married and we have two kids but anyway, so, um, I, through this time, was following with the hematologist and all that stuff and and he, my hematologist, told me, like, he recommended that I never have children just because, uh, because of like how horrible the clot was and like it almost killed me or it could’ve that, you know, and it was due, like, according to him and, you know, best, like, assessment was that it was due to the hormones that I had been taking, that it was just not safe for me to have children, and he recommended that I not have, and he had, like, at the time I wasn’t interested in having children but at that, like, hearing that kind of was like, you know, you’re a young person and some [sound cuts out]
58:04
[Redacted] can you hold for one second there seems to be a connection issue. Um, I don’t know how the wifi is on your end. Oh there you are. Sorry can you go back to when you were talking about the hematologist recommending that you not have children? Thank you.
Yes, so he did that and I remember being a little like, “Whoa, that’s something.“ You know, you’re 22, you know, you’re not thinking about those things, and he said he recommended that I not, and I was kind of like, “Oh.” And he said, I remember him talking about how a person’s value as a human is not, like, based on, like, whether or not they reproduce and all that stuff, like, he was a great, a great doctor, but then, you know, you talk to an obstetrician, and she’s like, “You’ll be fine! We’ll just give you blood thinners while you’re pregnant or whatever.” And so then after, um, I was on Coumadin for a year and a half after my clot and the hematologist told me that if I don’t have another blood clot, like, while I’m on Coumadin, and I had to get like serial blood draws, check Coumadin levels and all this stuff, and he said that if I could go, like, through that time period without having a blood clot, like, I’m unlikely to have– then I would come off Coumadin 'cause if the– there’s like two, like, curves, like a curve of risk of being on Coumadin and bleeding from being on a blood thinner, and then that curve of risk of like having another blood clot. And, like, those two cross at about a year and a half to where, like, at that point, if you haven’t had another blood clot, like, the risk of bleeding is greater than the risk of clotting again. So I came off of Coumadin and he, um, and he was like, you know, “Now you’re boring so I don’t need to see you anymore, but I’m going to refer you to, like, an internal medicine doctor.”
01:00:09
And, uh, and– and he’ll– he was somebody he knew, he was somebody that he had trained as a resident at OSU and he, he’s like, he trusted this guy as, like, a practitioner and, like, he like kind of transferred my care to him and, um, he, uh. I was also like really anemic always, which explains a lot now, thinking back, which is something that, like, all women should consider, like uh, am I like– I remember my primary care doctor, like, wanting to give me an iron transfusion and my hematologist, this is when they were both still working with me, my hematologist, 'cause my iron was so low, my hemoglobin was low, he wanted to give me an iron transfusion, my hematologist was like, “No, no, let’s just put her–” So I took vitamins to get my blood levels, like, better, my hemoglobin up and my iron level up and stuff. Um, but so anyway, so I ended up, l like, like, not seeing [Doctor] was my hematologist, he’s like, “You’re boring now so that’s good.” Now I have a really awesome primary care doctor who’s, like, very thorough and– 'cause like the whole thing was like, I mean I went to a doctor and they don’t– that’s not really on their list of like, “Are you having a clot in your brain when you’re 22?” But, you know, at this point, like, someone should kind of watch a little carefully. So, um, so I was just like regular stuff. I was working as a nurse, I ha– I was done seeing my hematologist, I didn’t have to follow up with neurosurgery anymore, I didn’t, you know, I had my skull back on, my hair grew back, I feel like, you know, pretty normal. And I was, and I, uh, was a nurse in the ICU for three years, and then when I ended up going back to grad school, was dating my now husband, and, um, went back to grad school so I’m a CRNA now. And I– we got married in 2013. I think I was like 26, which sounds so young now, but we were together like through grad school, and then after I was done and he was done with his critical care fellowship, uh, we were like, “Well, like, do we want to have kids?” And I was like, “yeah.” And, you know, he knew all that, the whole thing with the blood clot and, um, there was actually a lawsuit against Bayer which I, it was– I was part of that lawsuit, um, Bayer is the company that makes Yas and Yasmin, and the only reason I was ever even part of that lawsuit was because, weirdly enough, after I got out of the hospital, like a month right after, I mean I was like still shaved head, I mean very shaved head, still, my friend, one of my friends was, like, saying that she wanted me to– she thought about hooking me up with this guy who was in law school, she wanted us to date. She like wanted to set us up for a while and of course now was not a great time because I’m like– but she did, and he didn’t care that I have a shaved head, so we dated for a little while ,and he– because he was in law school he somehow knew about this litigation that was going against Bayer, um, and like he typed up a little thing and like sent it in to them and like gave my phone number and stuff and they called me. Um, it was this law firm called Burg Simpson, they called me not long after he told me, not long after he told me, he was like, “Do you care if I send this?” I was like, “That’s fine, I don’t care.” And– and they called me about that and, um, it ended up like they– they yeah, it was like a whole thing. But there was that, and actually like the settlement, it was like, me [Redacted] vs. Bayer initially and then– and then they lumped me in with like, fifty-two other cases, various cases, like the worst one was a woman who had died from, um, then they attributed it to the medication, died of a pulmonary embolism, she had small children, and the next worst one was a girl who had a mesenteric thrombosis, so she had a blood clot but in the blood vessels that feed her gut. Like her bowels. So, like, lots of bowel surgeries and, like, I mean horrible stuff. And then on mine, like, when they ended up, like, listing them all out through this settlement, like was the woman who died, the woman with the mesenteric thrombosis and then mine. And then there were a lot of other ones after that that had been, um, just like PEs and like blood clots in the legs and like all these things, like I forget there were like fifty-two other plaintiffs or something like that.
1:05:00
And, um, the settlement ended, gosh it was like, I don’t know, it was like years after it happened, um, 'cause I was married to my husband, it was before we had kids. Uh, but anyway so, that actually, which was good, the lawsuit was interesting. The lawsuit, like everyone knows that, like, pregnancy and, um, well in actual physiologic pregnancy you are at a little increased risk for blood clots, but because of other normal changes that happen when you’re actually pregnant, it’s lower, you have more blood volume and other things that help prevent clots when you’re actually pregnant. But I think it’s generally understood that birth control can cause blood clots, um, but I didn’t really know that. I mean I didn’t really know, I was on birth control initially for like my complexion, like from the time I was in high school, and then I just stayed on it for– for that reason but also to protect myself from getting pregnant at the wrong time, I didn’t want to have a kid if I wasn’t ready. And I guess I didn’t know so much like, the risks of birth control, um, until that happened to me, and it’s listed on the lists of risks but it doesn’t happen very often and the– the lawsuit against Bayer, the lawsuit that was filed by Burg Simpson was not claiming that like birth control isn’t supposed to cause blood clots, 'cause it can and that’s something that we know, but what they said was failure to warn. And so they were arguing that, 'cause the Yas and Yasmin is like a new, it was like a newer hormone mix, it’s like estradiol or something was like a little different than, like, the long standing like, Ortho Tri–Cyclen stuff. So it was like something was a little different, they were marketing it heavily in dermatology offices, this will help your skin and all this stuff. And so the lawyers were arguing that they didn’t do a good enough job warning the public about what they– what they said is an increased risk above the already increased risk of blood clots. So they actually– they actually, I don’t– they didn’t ever go to trial and Bayer just settled with them. Um, I think they settled, like, for everyone like eleven million dollars or something like that. But anyway, it’s just an interesting, like, I think that legal stuff is interesting because I have no idea, but it wasn’t that like, “Oh you did this, your medication’s horrible.” It was like, no you didn’t warn people that, 'cause I mean, yeah, and I think education, I mean I just didn’t know, I didn’t know and now I do. Um, but anyway so then it was the decision whether to have kids and my OB– I– well [doctor] said, “Don’t have kids, but if you do, make sure you see [another doctor] who’s a high risk obstetrician at Ohio State.” And so, like I had my OB and I was like, “Look, I’m thinking about having kids and if I do, I’m supposed to see [doctor].” And she was like, “Okay.” So I get pregnant with my daughter and, um, they just put me on, uh, Lovenox, so I had to take a– I had to give myself a shot every day of blood thinner and, um, yeah, I had my daughter and everything was fine. And then, um, with my son I had another crazy experience. I was pregnant, I got pregnant just before Covid, such bad timing. It was like November of 2019, I’m, like, pregnant with my son and then, um, then Covid hits and then, um, and then they– I was like far into pregnancy but it’s Covid time so like you’re going to the obstetrician by yourself, and they, uh, I’m like twenty weeks in, you know, the anatomy scan, they couldn’t see everything they wanted to see so they’re like, “Yeah, we’re gonna have to bring you back.” And I’m like, “oh shoot.” And so then they bring me back and they– they said that they couldn’t find one of his kidneys so they were gonna send me for an MRI. A fetal MRI, which is interesting, which I didn’t know they did that. They send, like, pregnant ladies to get an MRI of their fetus, and so they do an MRI and, um, like the read was horrible, they said that, like, the radiology was really bad. The radiologist essentially was describing what is known as Potter's Syndrome where a baby’s kidneys don’t develop or a fetus’s kidneys don’t develop, and then there’s not enough amniotic fluid because the kidneys aren’t developed and then, because there’s not enough amniotic fluid, the fetus’s lungs don’t develop.
1:10:00
And then the lungs don’t develop and then the fetus, when it’s born, can't breathe and dies. But my– the– the– the high risk people were like, “We disagree. We think that the scan was over read, they over read the MRI.” And, 'cause I remember thinking, I mean it was horrible. I remember telling my husband, like, “Are they going to offer an abortion at like twenty-some weeks?” But actually, I don’t even know, I think I was past the point where even Roe V. Wade, like it– it was– I was beyond twenty-two weeks when they found all that. And so it was like this horrible time between when we got that read out from the radiologist in the chart and before I was able to talk to the obstetricians who were taking care of me, and they said, um, the obstetricians, when they finally like, when they got a hold of me or we talked were like, “We think that that was over read. We don’t agree with that.” Like, and the fellow, um, one of the fellows who’s like getting extra training in OB to be a high risk OB, was like, “You know, I think he’ll be okay.” Like he was the only one to say that, 'cause we met with like neonatologists and a pediatric nephrologist, like, over Zoom 'cause it was Covid. We met with them to talk about, like, they looked at the scans and stuff, 'cause they were with Children’s Hospital so they had all the– they had the MRI read and they were all like, “We don’t know what will happen, like, when he’s born. We don’t know. But you know, we’ll see.” And thankfully, 'cause it was horrible, thankfully the fellow, the OB fellow, was like, “I think he’ll be okay.” He was the only one to say that. So I was like, “Okay.” And when he was born– so basically I went through the rest of my pregnancy not knowing whether he would be born, whether he’ll be okay, whether he’ll die, whether he’ll, like, be okay-ish and need, like, intubated or who even knows what. So we– we– like I was supposed to have like a little sprinkle they call it. It’s like a second baby shower, you’re having a second kid so they do a little thing for you but I told my friend, “Like, I can’t have that 'cause I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to get things if he’s gonna die. Like, I don’t wanna, like, get presents for a baby that dies, 'cause that will, like, be horrible later.” So I cancel all that, go through the rest of my pregnancy, and people are like, “Oh! When are you due?” And it’s harmless, they don’t know, they mean well, and I’m like, “I’m due in August,” No actually, I was due July 31, so I was like, then I would sometimes tell people, “but I don’t know if the baby will live or not. Like they say maybe.” It was horrible. So that experience was like one of those ones where it– like, had all of my OBs told me that this baby would not survive, I would have flown somewhere and had an abortion, 'cause I am not trying to, like, go any further in a pregnancy and the baby is just gonna die anyway. But there was no consensus. There was some, “We don’t know.” And then some, “We think he’ll be okay.” So we were just, like, riding on that. Like, and when he was born, um, he came out screaming, which was the first good sign, 'cause if the lungs don’t develop, that’s– that’s the part that’s the most worrisome part. Um, and so– and then they like whisked him off, 'cause what they do when you are having a baby that they have a concern for before you give birth is like, right before you give birth, they page overhead, “room 35,” and then they say some other things like, “number, number, number.” And, like, everyone comes in to be there, and so then it was like all the pediatricians, all the neonatologists, and all these people come ,and they’re there so when the baby is born, everyone’s there in case they need to, like, do stuff.
1:15:00
Um, so he’s screaming, which is good, they take him over and they do all this stuff, and they check, check, check. And I had been told to expect a NICU stay of some sort, like, that he’ll go, um, and they, like, checked him over and they’re like, “He can go to the regular nursery.” So that was like the first good sign. Yeah, so we like didn’t, which is, you know, and NICU stays happen and that doesn’t mean anything. Some babies go to the NICU because they just need a little extra, like, support for a little, like, bit and the NICUs are generally amazing places. People have great experience, like the people who work there are awesome. I was not dreading a NICU experience, only for the fact that it could mean that something was really wrong or that it was, like, on the scale of– on the scale of terrible of where he dies to, like, great. It was all just like a misdiagnosis, like if he had gone to the NICU I would think it’s like more leaning towards that bad end. So I was– I had– I don’t– I think the NICUs are, I’ve heard great, great things, and babies can go there and be just fine. But he didn’t go, which was good, a good sign to me. And we would– we just followed up with the pediatric nephrologists for a while after that, and he’ll always have to see, um, a nephrologist for his whole life 'cause his kidneys aren’t normal but they function adequately for him so far, like they’re fine. Um, like he was getting serial lab draws for a while, and now he, luckily, he’s gonna be 3 in August and– and now he is on like the yearly plan, so he goes once a year to see the nephrologist, he gets his labs drawn, he gets an ultrasound to check his kidneys and all this stuff. So that’s where we are. My daughter’s, she’s 6 going on 7, my son is 2 going on 3. And they’re crazy and, um, I– I knew like having kids, like it was a risk to me, but it was a decision that I made, like it was a choice that I made knowingly. Like I knew, I knew the risks, and I accepted those risks, and the only reason I did was because I had, like, you know, some debates in my own head like, “What is the meaning of life, like what–” I realize that having children doesn’t define anyone, but what do I want, you know, like what, whatever. And so I kind of had those debates within my own head. So I had, I– I– I think of, like, of women and– and like everything related to reproductive health in a lot of ways, just because of my own personal experiences, of my own experiences, like, taking birth control and almost dying and– and like realizing the risks of– of pregnancy and hormones and all these things. And, um, and then also the experience of having my son where– where I’m pregnant at risk to my own self and I have a fetus that, you know, like I– I there was not, like, unanimous voices telling me he’s going to die, but had there been, I would not have continued that pregnancy any longer than necessary, like until we got to a point where everyone’s like, “Yeah he will not survive.” A baby that doesn’t develop kidneys, or has kidneys that are nonfunctional in utero and your amniotic fluid is low, if they can see that definitively and doctors agree on those things, that is not survivable and– and I would not have carried, I would have gone out of state, I would not have carried at the risk to myself. I wouldn’t have continued a pregnancy that was not gonna, like, the baby was not gonna survive. Now, like, we knew that, based on like generally adding up all the different doctors’ voices, that he would probably survive, but we didn’t know what he would need or whatever, so we again, we gambled on that, right? Like we think he’ll be okay, um, but yeah it was a lot. There were a lot of things that happened in my twenties and beyond that have shaped, like, the way I feel about women’s health and, um, like the reproductive process and– and reproductive rights, and so of course then after, uh, the Dobbs decision I was so mad, and I live in Ohio, and we had a trigger ban that went into effect, like, immediately, like within hours of Dobbs being decided, that said that a woman could not have an abortion, uh, after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is about six weeks.
1:20:00
And I remember thinking, like, that is so messed up, that’s so messed up. Like, so I was like I have to do something. I have to do something and I started like, I– I, like, made a website, did all this stuff, but I’m not on social media, 'cause actually I was told when I was 22 by those lawyers, they were like, “Come off social media, you have to get off social media. Like, you’re involved in a lawsuit, you can’t be on there. Like, don’t say anything. Whatever.” And, um, so I did. And I haven’t been on social media, like, for like over a decade. And, uh, I didn’t have any like– so because of that I was kind of like in the dark. I didn’t have any, like, real, like, platforms, I had friends, we had meetings, like what are we gonna do about this? I realized there was a constitutional amendment process in Ohio where citizens could bring amendments to the constitution and I was like, “that’s what we have to do,” because as of– even currently, as I’m talking to you, our Ohio legislature’s super gerrymandered, and the Republicans have a super majority that doesn’t reflect like the population. Like the Republican, Democrat, um, mix in Ohio leans Republican, generally speaking, but we elected Obama twice. And then Trump. So, you know, we used to be a swing state, now with the bad maps and gerrymandered districts because of this super majority that the Republicans have, we have, I mean there’s just no way you– there’s not– this ban is going to stay in place. So I remember thinking, there’s a citizen’s amendment process, we have to do that. We have to do that. I even considered, I even considered taking Michigan’s amendment, 'cause they had passed reproductive rights constitutional amendment via the citizens of Michigan. They had passed that, like, just after Dobbs, they had gotten that started before Dobbs and they passed it the November after Dobbs, and I was like, “Why don’t I copy paste that one and submit it to the attorney general of Ohio? 'cause I mean, who knows?” I even considered that, but I found there was a group out of Cleveland of, like, of physicians, all women, who– the group’s Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights. But, they, um, had the platform, 'cause they’re all doctors and they were on social media, and they were already, like, they were talking about Dobbs and how horrible, and then they started talking about a citizen’s amendment and I was like– I messaged them, “Can I help?” And, “I’m not a doctor but I’m a nurse.” Um, I didn’t know I could be– I was like, “I don’t think I could be part of your group 'cause I’m not a doctor, but like can I help you?” And I, like, sent them my website, I was like, “I have a little group down here, blah, blah, blah.” And they were like, “yeah.” And I ended up, I’m actually on the board of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, and I have, like, helped with the amendment, and now we are gonna be on the ballot in November. We just submitted 710,000 signatures, not just us, like, we couldn’t have done it, like our group couldn’t have done it alone. But, like, us plus ACLU and Planned Parenthood and like other groups in Ohio, uh, worked together to gather signatures. It was like over four months, 'cause we started gathering, I mean really gathering in April, just this past April, and then submitted 710,000 to the Secretary of State’s office on Wednesday, July 5th. And, um, so that was like a big, it was really cool. Um, went down to the statehouse for that and then, um, now of course we have this, like, August election, but that, whatever. It’s just crazy. There’s so much– the issue of reproductive rights is become, it was politicized, like, historically, um, gosh, this is like back, like, in the– I want to say like ‘60s, it’s like just a political tool. It’s a tool that’s used to get people overly excited about something that is a personal decision and get them to vote.
1:25:00
Um, it gets people to crusade on behalf of babies. That they will never have responsibility for, like, they will never adopt these children, they will never bear financial or physical burden of these children because they are not, this fetus is not theirs. Like, it doesn’t belong to them, but it riles people up, and I think people who really truly oppose abortion just feel like they’re saving babies, and I think what gets left out so often is just women. Like it’s not–it’s a woman who is pregnant, and the idea of, like, like nobody talks about that when they’re talking about abortion. They hold up pictures of, like, dead fetuses, and if we could we should hold up a picture of a dead woman who has just died, I mean that happens and the– the– the deaths, like maternal deaths, are on the rise in this country. We are the– the worst out of all developed nations for maternal mortality. We have the highest rate. I mean, it just blows my mind and I have a daughter and I– she’s now, because of what happened to me, I– I don’t know that I would feel comfortable putting her on birth control, and I would never want her to be a mom before she was ready. Like the idea that– that abortion is– it’s just a personal choice and I feel so strongly because of my own personal experiences about that. That I just cannot fathom, I’m like but what about the woman? What about her? And of course everyone loves babies, and I love my children, and I love all children, truly. I just can’t, I just cannot. I feel so, so strongly about it.
And, but it’s shaped my life. All the things that happened that were, you know, were– were weird or like, you know, at the time like very, uh, tough to get through, and I would say, honestly, the blood clot situation was less hard than my son. That was the hardest, that was literally the hardest thing I’ve ever been through emotionally. Like, not knowing if he’ll die or live for like– and then are they gonna offer me an abortion, but I’m so late in my pregnancy, and everything got pushed back because of Covid, so like by the time they caught all this, I was outside of twenty-two weeks, so it was– it was very trying. And then of course every appointment I went to, I had to go by myself because, you know, no one was allowed to go with you because of Covid. So it was very trying. And I– there–,and I just know there’s so much to these decisions that people don’t– who aren’t in them couldn’t possibly understand. And that’s what made me buy, uh, the– when I– before, actually before Dobbs was decided, I was like, “I’m getting some abortion pills, 'cause this is gonna be illegal soon.” 'Cause I knew that, I didn’t know for a fact, but I was fairly certain, given the makeup of our Supreme Court, and this case that was brought, it would be, that Roe would be overturned. So it was like a few months before Dobbs, I was like, “I’m gonna buy some, 'cause it’s gonna be illegal soon.” And I did! And I bought my first pack, and I still have it in my drawer, just in case, and then I– and it was interesting 'cause I think it was like $150 the first time I bought it, and then post Dobbs, after our trigger ban went into effect, I just bought another one. I truly have both packs I– but the price was lower because, uh, because of the trigger ban, because a state with a ban, you– the– the– if you’re living in a state with a ban, the price of it is more affordable, made more affordable, which is awesome. Um, but that’s kind of where I am now, like, I have my two kids, you know, we still get our son follows up with nephrology every year, but he’s crazy and hilarious and great. And I work, um, part time as a CRNA. Um, actually was working more full time after, like, after my daughter was born, but then because of Covid and then my son’s, like, health concerns I cut way back on work so that we didn’t have to send him to daycare, 'cause we didn’t know, you know, we didn’t want him to get sick and whatever, but he’ll start preschool this fall. Um, but I didn’t want to quit, 'cause I was like I need to keep my career, obviously, so I just work part time. And, um, and– and– and that has been those two experiences that changed my life. I mean really changed, shaped my view, um, you know, you have a kid and your life changes and you almost die and it kind of, it did, it changed my life. Those two experiences are tied directly back to, like, reproductive stuff, so I just– all this stuff in our country now is just, I feel so, I have such strong feelings about it all and that’s what– that’s what, you know, like kind of inspired me and drove me to like work– work on the citizens’ amendment in Ohio, that’s what, like, made me just in like a defiant, uh, act buy those Aid Access pills, and as soon as I heard about this, this the potential of, like, talking or like talking about my story, I was like, “I would love to do it,” just 'cause, you know, it’s– it’s– it’s– it’s important, I think, to talk about these things that affect real people, that affect women and the children they may or may not bear.It’s all– it’s all so important and so relevant currently. So I think that’s it.
1:31:00
[Redacted], oh sorry go ahead.
Do I say the end? (laughter)
Um I did have a couple of follow up questions if I may.
Yeah.
I was wondering if you might be able to share a little bit about your experience as a nurse, and just sort of speaking about what it means to be in that field professionally, and if there’s anything anecdotally you’d want to share, or anything that sort of drives you in that regard.
Yeah, so I love being a bedside nurse. I love working in the ICU. I decided to go back to school mainly because I was working with nurse practitioners who were like critical care nurse practitioners but also would get patients from the operating room, 'cause I worked in the surgical ICU, so I would get patients from the operating room and sometimes CRNAs would bring them back and there was this one CRNA who would always be like, “When are you going back to school? Why don’t you go back to CRNA school?” And he was always so happy, and I was like, he seems like he loves his job and, um, honestly I feel like Ohio State’s nursing program almost, like, as they’re training you to be a nurse, after undergrad they’re, like, prepping you to go back to grad school, too. So, um, so I didn’t leave the bedside because I didn’t like my job. I did. I would go back to be, like, an ICU nurse. I love, I just like people. I am, like, kind of socially dependent. I’m not one of those people who needs a lot of alone time. I could just talk to people all day. They’d probably be annoyed, but I could keep going. And I like that, I liked interacting with people, I liked taking care of patients, and I knew honestly what it was to lay in a bed like that, like I knew what it felt like with like all the tubes, I knew, you know, I understood not obviously, I don’t understand what every individual is going through, but I had been in a similar situation, um, so I enjoyed it for like a lot of reasons, like, socially and just like, you know, on– on a level where I was like, yeah, I’ve– I understand, like, kind of how you’re feeling. I remember taking care of a neuro patient, and he just had this deadpan look on his face, and he’s talking to his family, and they’re so worried because this isn’t who he was, right? But he had an infection in his brain and he was recovering, and he was just, like, just like not himself. And I was like, I remember being just like that. Like, and I, like, talked to the family, you know, maybe when he gets better he’ll perk up, once he gets out of here and all this stuff he’ll– 'cause even my friends were like they thought I wouldn’t ever be like the same person again? Like they, after I woke up and all that stuff, like I was just not quite me and then I– when I got out of the hospital, went home to my parents’ house to live for a little while, I, like, 'cause I did not sleep after I, like, got woke up from the coma or whatever, I was just awake constantly. I couldn’t sleep, and so when I went home and slept in a bed, a real bed, and I would sleep for like sixteen hours a day and– and then finally my friend said she called me one day and she was like, “Oh she’s back!” Like it took a little while so, you know, and I remember having patients and being like that was– I remember feeling that same way. So there was partially that, and I just like people, and then, um, I went back to school, and I still like what I do. Nursing’s a great career. It’s very flexible and you’re on your feet, you know, you’re like walking around, you're not always sitting down at a desk, you’re interacting with people all day long. So for me it just worked 'cause I– I like that. Um, and now what was your other question about being a nurse? Oh, and I’ve taken care of patients, like, you know, a lady, as a CRNA I took care of a patient who had, um, was pregnant with her second? It was an intentional, like, desired pregnancy. Her first was a– she had a daughter at home who was 3, and she was probably like thirteen, fourteen weeks along, and she found out, she ended up finding out she had cancer in her back, like a sarcoma, and she had to decide whether to keep going with the pregnancy and risk this cancer spreading everywhere, which it would 'cause this was an aggressive cancer, or she could, um, have, you know, have an abortion, 'cause the treatment she needed, the chemotherapy she needed was not compatible with pregnancy. Some chemos are, which I didn’t know until like that time when I was talking with the OB. So there are chemos that you can get while you’re pregnant, but the one that she needed for her type of cancer was not, and she has a daughter already at home and she, the question for her was either, you know, no you’re not going to lose your life right now because cancer doesn’t kill you immediately, but it will kill you eventually if it spreads everywhere, it’ll just be kind of slow, and so she opted to have an abortion because, of course, that’s what I would do. I would do that in a heartbeat, like you have an existing child, this cancer is threatening your life, right? And I always think about her now, because I wondered, if she had been pregnant after Dobbs, 'cause this pre-Dobbs, whether she would have been allowed to have that abortion. And I don’t think she would have been because, as it was read, as the law reads in Ohio, it has to be like essentially an immediate threat to the woman’s life, which cancer is never an immediate threat to your life. It isn’t but it is a threat to your life, and when you’re pregnant, your, um, your immune system is suppressed to some extent. Like everything– this cancer was just gonna go everywhere when she’s pregnant 'cause her body’s defenses are a little bit on pause because of being pregnant. And, um, it was an aggressive type, so I remember just like, gosh, I remember being like, just for her, like, I remember being this touched and, like, just I didn’t cry, but I was like tearing up and trying not to cry in front of her, 'cause of how sad I was like what she was going through. And you have, like, experiences like that in healthcare when you’re a nurse or a doctor or anybody who is in healthcare. When you work with people, when you’re a teacher, I’m sure teachers see kids who are abused and stuff, so I think being a nurse for me is like working in like public service and– and you see things that give you perspective, and I appreciate that about the profession as well. Like, you see people in all kinds of situations, all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. And it gives you real perspective, which I appreciate. Is there any other question?
1:39:00
What was the, uh, the– how was the financial award from the lawsuit meaningful for you and your family?
Um, so it paid off all of my grad school, 'cause my parents paid for my undergrad, 'cause they’re great. That was amazing. It was truly helpful, but I took out loans for my grad school, paid off all my grad school and most of my husband’s medical school which is, uh, huge, and I always think, like, I always tell him, “Well good thing it paid for our school 'cause I’m gonna get brain cancer later. And like, we can’t have a bunch of debt when I get brain cancer,” 'Cause I had so much radiation to my head, like, when they– when they were getting the clot out, I was in constant, like, getting constant imaging of my head, which is like if– 'cause I’ve done these cases for when people were getting, like, when they’re doing imaging of the head, and they’re extracting clots, everyone in the room is full lead, hiding behind lead shields, wearing lead gowns, thyroids covered, and me as a patient, just getting blasted with this radiation to my head constantly, and I actually have a patch of hair that never grew back in the back of my head from the imaging and from, um, the contrast dye that they were giving me, it just destroyed my hair follicles. So I always tell my husband, “Thank goodness we got most of our debts paid off 'cause I’m gonna get a brain tumor and you’re gonna need to pay my medical bills, so.” I mean I don’t know that I’m gonna get a brain tumor, but I have had a lot of extra radiation from all that. I have a lot of scars. If I ever needed to, like, get scar surgery to fix all this, I won’t but I don’t ever want to have a surgery that I don’t need. But that’s just my philosophy, but the– for sure a lot of radiation that probably will come back to bite me sometime down the road. So I joke about that. Hopefully not, but anyway, but it helped out in that way. I mean, it was great to– to ease that, like, the– we have careers that we could have paid for it, you know, you pay your debts but– but I think it’ll help, 'cause, again, I think I will suffer eventually some physical consequence of all that radiation, I assume. I don’t know, but I just assume. Which is so morbid. (Laughter) Did you have any other questions?
01:41:56
Um, what, uh, what is your family planning like now with your husband in terms of contraception or anything else?
No more kids. And I told him, 'cause this is me, this is me, now I’m old, I’m old, Im so– I’m not that old, but I am old, this is me as an old woman who’s, like, been through some stuff, and I said to my husband, I’m like, I– I mean we’re both done having kids but I was like, “I am not having surgery to get my tubes tied.” Like if I had had a C-section with, after my son, I would have had them tie my tubes, but I was like, “That’s not happening. I’m not having a surgery. I’ve had plenty.” I was like, “So, you could get a vasectomy, because that’s a pretty sure bet, right?” Like then you don’t have to worry about, 'cause I’m not allowed to take hormones. I can’t be on birth control ever again, and the only option I have really is, um, an IUD, which doesn’t give hormones, there’s a copper IUD, most IUDs also are impregnated with hormones to help like prevent pregnancy as well, but there is one that doesn’t have hormones, but I’ve heard even from my obstetrician it can be cramping, it can cause like intermittent bleeding and like all this stuff, and I’m like that sounds crappy and honestly I’m such like a battle ax now. I’m like, “You know what? I did all that stuff to my body,” and I’m like, “I’m not doing that anymore, that backfired hard on me.” I was like, I literally joke sometimes, I’m like, “You know, if I got an IUD you know what would happen? It would perforate through my uterus, perforate through my aorta and try to kill me. That’s what would happen.” So I told my husband, “I’m not doing anything, I’m not having surgery, I’m not getting an IUD, I’m done with all of that stuff.” I was like I had two kids, I’m happy but I’m not having anymore kids, but I’m not doing anything crazy for birth control. Like, so either we use barrier methods or you get a vasectomy and he’s like “I don’t want a vasectomy.” And so we’re very careful, I’m paranoid and I– but we’re done having kids. And, um, my hope is that just menopause comes fast, just come on sweet menopause, I’m ready (laughter) that’s kind of where I am. I probably answered more of your question than you had intended [unclear]. That’s me, I’m just old now. So old.
01:44:34
Um, [Redacted], is there any final thought that you might want to share and make sure it gets included in this story?
Um, you know, no, other than like women, gosh, this is so horrible. Women’s lives matter, right? Can I throw that one out there? And not just women, like women, anyone who is– pregnant people, like, people, we matter too, right? Like, we– it’s so complicated, you know, reproductive issues, very complicated. It’s– there’s a pregnant person and then there is a fetus, right? But like if anything happens to that pregnant person, that fetus is gonna be affected too. Either it’s gonna die or it’s gonna be motherless and I– I just feel so strongly that these things should be kept between a woman, a pregnant person, and their doctor, like none of these decisions should be, like, legislated like in the way that they are. Like of course no one wants, like, a full term healthy fetus to be aborted, but that’s not what happens. Like, that doesn’t happen. It’s, uh, it really doesn’t. Like there are people who kill their children and– and those people exist and, but most people we shouldn’t be making laws, uh, that risk people, people’s lives, because of like one person who might do something bad. It just doesn’t make sense. Um, so you know through all my weird experiences I– I just feel so strongly about– about women’s and pregnant people, their health and– and all that. It’s just so important. I think that’s– those are my final thoughts. Like, none of this should be the way it is now, just doesn’t make sense, and I hope that it changes. I think it will. Um, but I hope– I hope it’ll– it’ll get better. Hopefully. I believe that it will. We’re headed there, we’re getting there, it’ll just take time. I think that’s it. Yeah.
Thank you [Redacted], I’m gonna go ahead and stop the recording.