After contracting a blood clot from her old birth control pill, this mother of three has escaped the worst. Today, she is learning to live with her disability.
Aurélie Seguin-Mba’a was a very active mother of two children. After her second maternity leave, she decides to go back to work and take the contraceptive pill, under the supervision of her doctor. But on February 15, 2016, her life changed, as she recounts in a series of tweets.
“I'm going to tell you about that day when the pill almost deprived my children of their mom…”
“It was February 15, 2016, 1 month after returning to work following my maternity leave. I was quietly at work when I started to feel a severe earache ”, she wrote on Twitter.
The young woman, 28 years old at the time of the facts, developed a blood clot which compressed a vein in her brain on the left side. She is then having an ischemic stroke, due to an insufficient supply of blood and oxygen to the brain.
“I couldn't answer the phone anymore. I didn't understand what was happening to me. The pain was getting worse, so I decided to go see my N + 1 and tell her that my ear hurts. When she arrives at my office, she looks at me and finds me pale … She tells me half of your face is swollen, there is something wrong. I tell him don't worry, I'll go see my doctor later, but then I'll go home. She stops me and tells me no, I'm going to call your partner and he'll take you to the emergency room … since she insisted I tell him ok. She manages to reach my husband and tells him that I'm not feeling well, that he comes to get me to take me to the emergency room. He tells her he's coming. I am patient and the pain continues to intensify… ”, says the young woman.
The birth control pill causes the problem
Quickly, after a scan, she was transported to an intensive care unit for a period of one week. The doctor's observation is then clear, it was the combination of the pill with her postpartum period that created this blood clot. “If you want to tell someone, do it because we will transport you to the Intensive Care Unit”, warn doctors. “My world is falling apart … My eyes are crying alone … I wonder if I will die … I have my 2 year old son and my 4 month old daughter at home as well as my husband … I think of my mother in Cameroon, my brothers and sisters … I tremble, I am afraid … I call my husband, I explain to him what is happening. He freezes, he has no words and tells me that he is warning the family and that I tell him the rest. I hang up and turn to the Doc and finally ask her if I'm going to die? Shall they cut my head open? ”, she recalls.
After this incident, the young woman was treated with anticoagulants for 6 months. “I am banned from hormones for life. So no more pills or anything else and if baby I want, oblige to follow a preventive anticoagulant protocol as in my last pregnancy with a bite every day (which I was already doing during my treatment) ”
"I'm just learning to live with my disability"
Since then, the young woman suffers from permanent vertigo, she also has a slight numbness in the face. Invisible sequelae but indeed irreversible since Aurélie is now considered a disabled person. “It was very disabling for me because I couldn't take care of my daughter for the first few months after the incident. My daughter didn’t understand why I stopped taking care of her. Today my children have grown up, they understand the situation because we have explained everything in simple words. "
This mother also had to stop working because of her multiple health problems. “I couldn't feel my place in the company anymore. It's hard to accept the new person I have become because I was so active before. " Today, his daily rhythm is different. “Sometimes things are going very well, sometimes a little less. I have a lot of trouble standing, there are days when I can't do anything. But I'm just learning to live with my disability ", relative Aurélie.
One thing is certain for her, there is a lack of prevention around the contraceptive pill, especially on side effects. As a reminder, in 2013, a report from the Medicines Agency warned about the contraceptive pill which causes, on average, 20 deaths per year in France.