Grownups tend to be their own doctors and try to heal themselves using the best available home remedies. They also seem to believe in the remedy of sleeping it off and hoping it would get cured. Rarely does it happen that the ailment turns out to be serious, but when it does, not going to a doctor proves to be fatal. One such story is about a 9 year old, who forced his mother to get help after she was not well. What the doctors found will shock you and make you wonder, what if she had not listened to her son and never went to a doctor.
9 year old Camdyn Smith from Sedro-Woolley, Washington lived with his 3 siblings and single mother Kimberly. Kimberly used to work extra hard to provide for the boys, one of them being a new born and who was delivered via a C-Section. She used to do much more than just hard work to send the two older boys school and take care of the baby. However, she felt something was wrong with her as she started experiencing pain in her chest.
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The pain in Kimberly’s chest became severe with every breath she took, but she had to look after the baby and prepare food for the other two boys, so she couldn’t find time to go out and consult a doctor. Camdyn returned from his classes and immediately felt that his mother was in some pain and urged her to go to a doctor. Kimberly said that there was nothing serious with her and she could manage with the pain. However, Camdyn continued to argue and said, “My health teacher said if someone grabs their chest like that, I should call 911. I’m going to get my shoes on. We need to get to a hospital.”
Hearing this, Kimberly called the doctor’s and got an appointment, however she believed she had pneumonia; which is common in mothers after giving birth. the mother-son duo arrived at Skagit Valley Hospital, where they were shocked to learn what Kimberly had.
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Doctors found out after examination Kimberly was suffering from bilateral pulmonary embolisms and that her lungs were filled with blood clots. Doctors praised Camdyn’s insistence on Kimberly coming to them, as if she had decided to nap it off, she may never have woken up again. Doctors kept Kimberly in hospital care for seven days and gave her meds to resolve the clotting issue. However, it would take upto six months for the clots to go away and two years for Kimberly to be fully healthy again.
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“I feel like he’s my son, but he’s also my hero, I can’t even imagine if he hadn’t said what he did. What would have happened. I want to bring awareness about blood clots. I’m thirty-two, and I didn’t even know what a pulmonary embolism was” Kimberly says.
The pulmonary embolism was formed as a result of her surgery to give birth and a genetic condition which put her at higher risk of getting blood clots. If these clots travel to the legs and get stuck in the veins, the condition is known as Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). DVT is highly painful and patient might not know when the blood clot could travel to the heart or brain and death can occur at any time.
Luckily for Kimberly, for once she listened to her son and went to the doctor at the right time.