(gentle music)
- So on Tuesday,
I told my sister
that I thought I had a blood clot in my arm.
I said,
I'm just gonna take a shower
and see if this resolves itself.
If it happens again,
I'm gonna go to the ER.
All that week,
I was at a convention,
I had fun,
I was meeting friends.
My arm was a little swollen
but I was kind of ignoring it.
Until Thursday,
I went to a dinner.
Here I am at dinner with some amazing women.
It was a great time.
Went to the dinner, came home.
I was like hmm, something is wrong.
I think I should go to the doctors.
So, instead of going to the doctors,
I went to sleep
and just hoped that I woke up in the morning,
which is a very scary thought to fall asleep to.
Woke up the next morning,
was supposed to record a podcast,
decided that hmm we have a serious issue.
The veins are starting to break in my shoulder.
This arm is so swollen.
I looked ripped.
It looked like I had been to the gym.
I was so shredded,
but that was actually just swelling.
And I thought because this is my arm
that I do light saber training with,
and I'm mostly right-hand dominant in sports
and any type of martial arts stuff.
I was like,
okay this is not right.
I need to go somewhere now.
Went to urgent care,
they looked at my arm,
and said, "You gotta go to the ER."
My sister races me to the emergency room.
And there,
they do an ultrasound,
they find a blood clot.
Then from there,
they get me a room at a bigger hospital.
They take me by ambulance to the bigger hospital
where they then say,
"Yes, you definitely have a blood clot.
We're gonna have to do a thrombectomy."
Which is where they take a catheter,
and shove it into your vein
and pump medicine into the clot to break it up,
cool.
- [Man] How was that?
Not too bad, hopefully.
- [Host] It was good, no, great driving.
- [Man] Thank you, thank you.
- [Host] Do you play Grand Theft Auto?
- [Man] No, no.
I just watched a lot of the Fast and the Furious movies.
- [Host] Okay, I was gonna say
because you would be very good. (laughs)
- [Man] Yeah.
- Update, I have moved to a bigger facility.
(machine beeping)
I don't really know what's going on.
I'm just real sad.
Just real sad.
(machine beeping)
I don't know.
(machine beeping)
So it's the morning, I've survived,
(machine beeping)
which is great.
(machine beeping)
Still have a slow drip of blood thinners,
and now they wanna go in and dissolve the clot.
So Saturday morning rolls around.
They take me down to do this procedure.
I don't know anything that's happening,
and the doctor wouldn't come up to see me.
So, they rolled me down to the OR instead.
So I'm here in the operating room trying
to understand what this doctor is telling me
and the whole process.
And I have my sister on the phone.
And then we were also talking to our friend, Chris.
Who you may know from the YouTube channel, Becki and Chris.
They do incredible, like home remodeling,
they do drone stuff,
they have a freaking helicopter.
I love their YouTube videos.
But Chris is actually, basically the doctor
that I'm talking to that is going to do the surgery.
Like, Chris could have been the one to do the surgery.
And I actually, I wish he was.
I wish that Chris was there and he could have done it.
Cause imagine what an incredible YouTube collab
that would be.
(Host laughing)
IJUSTINE Blood clot surgery,
oh my God that's incredible.
Unfortunately he wasn't there
but I was in pure panic mode.
Jenna was talking to Chris,
kind of behind the scenes giving him the low down
because I couldn't even use my phone.
So it took all of my power to like,
be able to find him in my phone,
call him,
connect him with my sister.
And at this point,
I know this doctor was incredibly annoyed
and I apologize,
but when you're being thrown into a situation
where I don't, I've never been to the hospital,
I've never really been sick in my entire life.
So this is traumatizing.
And of course the side effects
of this drug are pretty severe,
that they were gonna be putting in.
My sister has also had patients
who have unfortunately passed away,
or had a stroke because of this.
So it's like having that in the back of my mind
as I'm sitting there,
in this stark cold operating room with people around me
and no one that I knew or anything.
I don't know,
it was just such a surreal experience.
So I called Chris,
I'm like crying.
I have my own personal diagnostics
and interventional radiologist on the line
and my pharmacist.
So please hold,
we have some things to discuss.
We do that,
we go in they put the catheter
and they decide that they're gonna do this drug
called tPA to dissolve it.
I didn't know what that was.
I was freaking out,
crying,
I was in the bathroom.
This is actually a shot of me crying in the bathroom.
And I was like,
this might be the last clip that is ever on my phone,
that's really pathetic and sad.
But I go back in,
we decided we're gonna do it.
We're gonna do a low dose.
Do that for 24 hours and come back.
I mean,
we maybe should have done the full dose,
but there's a chance that I would've had to
have done the full thing twice.
So also this whole time I refused to give up my phone.
Like I was like, absolutely not.
And I'm just like trying to like film random pieces.
And they were putting me to sleep,
I was just like saying weird stuff, doing weird stuff.
Yeah, I talk about iPhones a lot. (giggling)
So if you've ever been on YouTube,
and saw crazy a girl talking about an iPhone?
- [Doctor] It's you?
- It's very well could have been.
- [Doctor] Turn the phone off now.
- I think so.
- [Doctor] Pardon?
- I think let's, yeah.
- [Doctor] Yeah?
- Yeah, that's (mumbling).
- [Doctor] I can turn it off now?
- And I know I haven't actually really even
made a YouTube video about this,
but I've been very,
into kind of like exploring the NFT and the Web3 space,
and I've learned so much.
And the reason that I haven't even made a video about it yet
is because I'm kind of trying to learn the pros,
the cons and kind of find out what people hate about it,
what people love about it.
And kind of find this middle ground
and be able to explain it properly to you.
That has been on my mind for the past four months
of just doing research.
And so the first thing that I do when I wake up
out of my anesthesia coma,
is I start asking everybody like,
"Hey, you guys got any NFTs? Who, who has NFTs here?"
I'm so tired.
But listen, I think I have to put
the clot on Ethereum and I'm sorry.
It's where the people are.
Up where they walk, up where they run,
up where they stay all day in the sun.
But my main project I'm gonna do on Solana,
because it's environmentally friendly.
Just saying crazy nonsense.
I may have said a swear word at the end,
but forgive me, I was on drugs.(laughs)
I'm reporting to the camera that I've survived.
Everyone has been so nice.
I feel (beep) dumb.
Come back the next day.
It didn't work.
I gotta do it again.
- [Woman] Yeah, but that's okay
'cause.
- No.
- Well it's not, but-
- I tried to offer my doctor a hundred dollars.
'Cause I knew I had a hundred dollars.
- [Woman] You actually have 140.
- Oh my God, tell him.
(laughing)
- [Nurse] Do you think the 40 will make all the difference?
- Yeah, that's like four coffees.
(nurse laughing)
I think he will take it, I think he'll take it.
- [Woman] And this is your 13 hours of
your second treatment.
- I'm so defeated.
First treatment didn't work.
- [Woman] Well, it got partial.
- It got partial.
So now we upped the dosage.
So I have to be on this for another 24 hours.
And at this point I can't move my arms at all.
Like my sister is feeding me,
she's brushing my teeth, she's brushing my hair.
I'm needing assistance to go to the bathroom
which was absolutely not a good time at all.
- [Woman] So you survived one night in the ICU.
Second night being ER/ICU.
How do you feel?
- Well, pretty terrible.
But one thing that I told Jenna to bring for me
was some dry shampoo.
- [Woman] And as you said it,
it was already in my bag.
Let's get beautiful.
- We're gonna have spa day,
and Jenna just brushed my teeth again.
So, now it's hair time.(machine beeping)
(machine beeping)
- Oh God.(machine beeping)
(chuckles) Oh geez.(indistinct)(machine beeping)
This one smells good.(machine beeping)
- Yeah.
- I'm sorry.(machine beeping)
- No I mean it's, it's great.
It's lovely.
- It's not that nice.
- It's lovely.(machine beeping)
Show them.
- Okay. Let's see the swollen digits.(machine beeping)
Yeah. It's pretty swollen.(machine beeping)
- It's way less swollen.(machine beeping)
So be basically now I'm gonna go in
for a procedure to make sure
that this catheter actually broke up the blood clot.
And then I think they take it out
and then they're gonna do some little like x-ray thing.
It's really hard to say, oh, knock
knock someone's coming in.
So my friend Roe,
you guys all know Roe and Mike.
Roe texted my sister
and was like I know you said no visitors,
but I'm coming anyway.
We were supposed to go to Hawaii this weekend.
So I was supposed to be flying out.
One thing that you can't do with a blood clot,
is get on a plane or at least you should.
The doctor did tell me I could,
but I think he was just like,
I'm sick of your rambling,
and I'm just gonna tell you what you wanna hear.
And Roe has brought Hawaii to me.
- (Roe giggling)
- Oh my God, am literally crying.
I wanted to check in girl.
Like this. I was like
I even took little lessons in college, am over here.
(Justine laughing)
- You should take this show on the road.
This is impressive. (laughs)
- But let's (indistinct)
- Crying cause I knew I couldn't go to Hawaii
but I was also laughing cuz like she's in my,
in the ICU room where you're not even supposed to
like bring gifts or like,
you know have flowers or like anything.
But I, I didn't have any of that.
I had a full on hula show,
with candy and treats and a dancer, which was Rosanne.
So it was incredible.
So thank you Mike and Roe for thinking of me
and coming to visit me in my darkest hour.
Which I think that was, that day was pretty tough.
So that definitely lifted my spirits.
(machine beeping)
- Let's hope we have empty clot.
Yay, no clot
- No clot gang, here we go.
3, 2, 1.
- So here we are.
Third time's a charm.
We go back in and this thankfully worked.
- There she is clot free.
Woo.
- She canceled on Hawaii.
- So I couldn't cancel your flight there yet.
You still have a flight there.
- (mumbling)
- But the right rest of it, the rest of it you're.
I think you're gonna stay here with me.
We'll have fun here.
- I feel like I'm making this all seem very,
wow yeah, this isn't a big deal.
No. A blood clot is a very serious issue.
Like you could die.
The blood clot could break off into your heart
to your lungs, to your head.
You could have a stroke.
It's not something to be taken lightly.
And with that being said,
that evening after they said that the clot was gone,
it was dissolved.
I started having chest pains, shortness of breath.
I started getting a little worried,
and something did not feel right.
I felt something like traveling.
So now I'm in sort of like,
I guess like the, the cardiac ward.
So we're here.
I've been here all day.
This is the arm.
A lot of stuff has happened to this little arm,
but it's, you're doing your job.
I'm about to get a CT scan,
having a little bit of chest pain.
And like, if you're here for a blood clot
and you have some chest pain,
like that's when you should probably go get it checked out.
So gonna go do that.
Other than that, my morale is pretty high.
I can't wait to change the sports bra.
It's been on me for a while.
We're gonna have to cut it off because I'm all hooked up.
Spirits are moderate, did I say that they were high?
They're not, they are not really.
So I hate needles. Absolutely hate them.
So every time somebody comes in to,
to take my blood I get a little panicky.
So basically this entire,
I guess hospital trip
has been one big breathing exercise.(exhales)
Breathe through it.
The power of breath is actually quite impressive.
So honestly, the only way I've survived this is just like.
(inhales and exhales)
Staying calm.
I hate needles.
Hate hospitals.
I'm never sick.
So this whole experience is,
not been, not been fun, but it's okay.
The blood has been drawn.
- The scary thing though
is because I'm on blood thinners.
It's like, I have to be super careful about falling.
So that night at 1:30 AM,
they ended up taking me down for a CT scan,
late night fun.
For the CT scan,
they inject dye into your vein
to kind of see the, the flow.
And it all kind of happens sort of very quickly.
And so like I'm in there with like my arms up
and it's like this big sort of
like machine that they just like stick you in.
At this point, I hadn't raised my arms up in like four days.
So doing that was so painful.
When I was inside of the machine,
I could feel when they shot the dye out,
that some of it like leaked out.
Like I could feel it leaking out,
but the machine tells you to stop breathing and stop moving.
And so I was like yelling.
I'm like, I think it's leaking out.
But then the machine goes, stop breathing.
I was like, I stopped.
So I was like, okay I don't wanna do this again.
So I need to just like,
we need to see if we can get this
and hope that this was for the best.
The CT dye stuff felt so freaking weird.
The guy's like, you're probably gonna feel like really warm
and like a little like metallicy taste in your mouth.
And then you might feel like you're gonna pee yourself.
(Laughs)
I'm like, okay.
Okay. Felt all of those things did not enjoy.
He said the scan was good enough.
They got enough dye in thankfully
like I'm of a smaller stature person.
Cool. Well, I go to sleep that night wake up in the morning,
and then everyone's like,
okay, so I think we're gonna be like sending you home today.
You know everything kinda came back,
looking, looking good.
I was like, okay, all right.
And then later there was like a change of shifts.
I spoke to another doctor and he's like,
so you had a PE there's a blood clot in your right,
something over here in my lung.
I don't know it was in my chart, whatever.
It doesn't matter either way.
It's there.
Oh cool.
Like that's what we've been trying to avoid this whole time.
Right?
He's like, yeah.
Your girl's been unhooked from the heparin,
which means I now have to take pill form.
But hey,
I had a pulmonary embolism which means a piece of
the blood clot broke off and went to my lungs.
That's cool.
But they're still letting me leave.
- Tiny one they say.
- Tiny, tiny.
So basically the same treatment that they
would be doing here.
It would just be blood thinners.
So they're like, did a CT scan, everything looks,
well not good.
But like good enough that we think you can go home,
and take your own drugs yourself.
So that's where we are currently at.
Am I breathing okay?
I don't even know.
Your vitals are all good.
You're walking around.
And a lot of times when people do come in with this,
really the only treatment that we have for them,
is we send them with, with blood thinners.
So I was already on super high dose of blood thinners.
And then I had a little breakfast and a little lunch,
waiting around, waiting to go home.
And I finally got cleared for it.
Yeah. Then I was, I was discharged.
They're like peace.
All right, here we go.
- Foot rest.
- Oh, like the foot rest too.
- Oh yeah let me get that for you.
- Oh my God, premium, premium treatment.
We're Out.
This whole process was so shocking and traumatizing
and scary because this is a very serious thing.
Like it's not something to take lightly.
So if you ever kind of have that weird feeling of numbness
swelling in any of your extremities,
like blood clots are absolutely no joke.
You should seek medical attention immediately
because it can be very detrimental.
And even if you are young, like that doesn't matter.
Like being young and healthy is trivial
because clearly if I'm so young and so healthy,
why did I have something like this?
Like anything can happen to anyone at any time.
And I think just the fact that
that even in my mind,
on Tuesday.
When I was like, Hmm I'm just gonna kinda let it go
and see what happens.
Like I should have went on Tuesday,
100% should have went.
I may seem like I'm in pretty good health
and great condition right now.
But the last five days at the hospital,
was absolutely traumatizing.
I couldn't use my arms.
I could basically do nothing.
My arm was so freaking swollen when I went in there,
that the doctor was actually like shocked.
She's like, what happened to you?
And I go, well that's why I'm here.
Tell me what's wrong.
So one of the diagnosis that they think it's a possibility,
is there is compression of my rib on this vein.
So I might have to get a rib removed,
but they said I keep the rib, bonus points.
Probably turn into a nice necklace, hmmm, fashion.
There's also some other things they can do just to remove,
kind of like that compression.
So there's,
there's a lot of answers that need to be answered.
So I'm kind of in that process right now
but all things considered, I can, like I'm good right now.
Like I'm, I feel pretty good.
I'm now on blood thinners.
But with blood thinners also comes a lot of risks,
if I like hit my head or even just like simple scratches,
or small rooms, because the blood thinner
like I could potentially bleed out.
Very, very scary.
And I'm just very grateful to still be here.
This is just a reminder
that if you ever feel like something is wrong
and not right with your body,
like don't hesitate to go seek medical help.
Because if I wouldn't have,
there are so many outcomes
where this could have been way more tragic
and I'm grateful that we found it early
Had an incredible medical team,
and a huge thank you to everyone that was
there to support me through this.
And to my sister who had to feed me,
and brush my hair.
And basically was my caretaker for the past five days.
Oh my God Jenna, thank you.
You're hero.
You're the best.
Yeah. So I'll see you guys in next video.
Peace.
- I supposed to go to Hawaii this weekend.
Hey, do, do you think I could fly to Hawaii this weekend?
- [Man] No, probably not.
- Probably not, huh.
(robot beeps)
Hi Moxi.
(Robot continues beeping).