"I went to the hospital for a double hip replacement, starting with the right hip," Brenda says. "They started me on Heparin for the first surgery. The first hip replacement was in April, 2007, and the second was in August, 2007. When they administered Heparin—at that time, they had no idea what was happening to me. I've been told since that what I went through was associated with Heparin."I literally clawed parts of my skin off. It was like my body was on fire. They said it was anaphylactic shock. It happened after I was given the Heparin IV, but they [hospital staff] couldn't figure out what was going on. They changed the bed sheets from bleached to unbleached, they tried a lot of things, but they couldn't figure it out.
"I was on breathing treatments because I had trouble breathing. It happened with the first surgery but with the second, it actually got worse. It was hard to breathe, very hard to breathe. One night I was having trouble breathing and they [hospital staff] came skyrocketing into my room. I was hooked up to monitors and I was getting no oxygen. My nails were scratching my skin off. Doctors were at a loss as to what was happening."
Because the doctors could not determine what was happening, they thought the problem was an allergic reaction to medication, but they did not know which one.
"They thought it was the Morphine, but I have had Morphine since then and have not had a problem," Brenda says. "Then, they were thinking it was the Coumadin. Because of that, they did not coagulate me when I was released from the second hip surgery. I developed DVT [deep vein thrombosis] and a pulmonary embolism. They should have coagulated me—it was the wrong thing to do. I was immobile in bed for a while after that surgery."
Brenda says her husband first saw news about contaminated Heparin IVs. Brenda saw a pulmonary specialist because she was about to have gastric bypass surgery and he confirmed that she might have suffered from Heparin contamination during her hip surgeries.
"The pulmonary specialist said that I was right on the mark for thinking it was contaminated Heparin," Brenda says. "He said that it was about the time frame and he was almost certain it was true. He also said the symptoms were about right.
"In 2008, I had gastric bypass surgery done. I saw Heparin on the list of medications and I was petrified—but I had no reaction to it at all with the bypass surgery. When I talked to the pulmonary specialist I told him I was scared to death about having Heparin again. He told me that it was not tainted anymore and I didn't have to worry. He assured me the problem was cleared up. I had no problems with it that time.
"[When I had the reaction to Heparin] I couldn't stay still because I was itching so bad. My reaction happened almost immediately after I was given Heparin through the IV. It was so bad—I'm scarred on my body and those scars will never go away. I just remember the heat, not being able to breathe, pain and the rash and itching were the worst. It was almost unbearable. I was hot all over. They packed me in ice and everything. I don't blame the doctors or the hospital—they did a really good job.
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"I guess some people have lost their lives over this. I could have. They monitored me; my oxygen levels dropped drastically and I couldn't breathe.
"Why did they wait so long to discover this? Why did they not find this sooner? The pulmonary specialist told me that doctors fed this information to the FDA and CDC, giving the list of symptoms and not understanding what was going on and trying to get answers but still it took forever. People were still being maimed or losing lives—they did something very wrong. People should not have suffered over routine surgery."