How A Sudden Pulmonary Embolism Forced Me To Reckon With My Health

When I was a thirty-something-year-old woman working at a fast-paced corporate job, I had a life-threatening pulmonary embolism that shaped my life’s trajectory.

In May 2012, I was leaving the “Strong” class at Strala yoga and felt a bit out of breath. It was a hot Saturday morning in New York City and I brushed it off as the result of a sweaty class at the start of the summer season. I asked my husband, Jason, to meet me in the city and we walked around the West Village for a bit before I felt the need to head home. We took the A train home and after I left the train, I collapsed going up the station’s stairs. I got up, exited the subway and we called my doctor. 

Unfortunately, I then proceeded to gaslight myself. I downplayed what had just happened and tried to rationalize my collapse as dehydration. No one ever wants to go to an ER, but I downplayed very clear symptoms that something was really, really wrong. I spent the rest of the weekend completely out of character, taking naps, moving very slowly, and feeling very tired. 

On Monday, the only way my husband would let me go to work was if I agreed to stop by the doctor on the way to the office. I stopped to see my general practitioner, who was pretty confident that I was having a pulmonary embolism. He recommended I get in a taxi and head to the NYU emergency room.

When I got to the ER, I learned that I had showers of clots in my lungs and was very lucky to be alive. It was the start of a long healing journey.

It was a true invisible illness in that I looked fit and healthy on the outside, but on the inside I was struggling with the most fundamental element of life: breath. After my diagnosis, it was scary to ride the train on hot, crowded days when it was a struggle to breathe. I remember rushing to empty seats, sometimes beating out senior citizens, becuase I knew it would be easier to breathe when seated as opposed to standing.

I also did not have any significant predispositions to clotting, especially the markers that they test for in pregnancy, when a woman is at an increased risk of a clot. I likely got the clot from being on birth control pills, which have been associated with an increased risk of clotting1.

When I wrote an article about my pulmonary embolism on mindbodygreen, I heard from hundreds of women who had either personally experienced a clot on birth control or had a friend, sister, or cousin who had. Many times, the consequences were tragic. 

It was also the first time that I started to think about my breath. We breathe 17,000 to 30,000 times per day, so learning how to breathe correctly through my nose had a profound impact not just on my healing, but on my life. It connected me more to my rest and digest, or parasympathetic nervous system, to help promote a calming response in my body. 

What would I have done differently? Well, I did a lot of things that didn’t have a huge ROI on my health and well-being. My friend JJ Virgin once told me “you have to bake the cake before you can put on the frosting” and I think it’s a great metaphor for well-being. You truly do have to conquer the fundamentals before you can start tinkering with wellness modalities that aren’t going to significantly move the needle.