WELLNESS
just keep
swimm ing A former Division I swimmer’s own health scare drives her passion to support other blood clot survivors
By Re n e e A mb ro s o | P h o to by Jo h n M ic h ael S im pson
S
am Nelson learned to swim almost immediately after she started walking. She eagerly jumped into tough training by the time she left her native Washington, D.C., to attend East Carolina University, grinding through 8,000 yards in practice sessions to perfect her form for the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke. “All that training and the talent that I had meshed together,” Sam says of her successful freshman season. It was during a weekendlong swim meet the next fall when Sam felt pain shooting through her back. By Tuesday, she was coughing up blood on the side of the pool. Her teammates and the athletics staff couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She exhibited symptoms like discoloration and redness in the leg, swelling and pain alongside the signs of a pulmonary embolism (a clot that traveled to the lungs), shortness of breath and a rapid heartbeat. Sam’s close friend Kelly Hayden brought her to the emergency room, where doctors finally determined the source of Sam’s debilitating pain: deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or a blood clot, reaching from her thigh to her shin. After surgery to remove the clot and a 10-day stay in the intensive care unit, Sam was discharged on Thanksgiving. Without treatment, Sam’s 30
chapelhillmagazine.com
December 2021