Rita S says her son's Heparin ordeal was a nightmare. Her son, Jackson, was only 18 years old in 2005 when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Unfortunately, the diagnosis came after the tumor hemorrhaged and the cancer had apparently spread to Jackson's lymph nodes and lungs."Talk about a shock," Rita says. "The very next day [following diagnosis] the doctor wanted to do surgery to remove Jackson's testicle and put a chemo port in his chest. He underwent that surgery and I'm sure that they said they did a Heparin drip. Then, 3 to 4 days later, Jackson started chemotherapy.
"They flushed the lines with Heparin before starting the chemotherapy. They had meters hooked up like a monitor that kept beeping all the time. The staff told Jackson it was going off because of how he was sitting. They even showed him how to shut the monitor off. So, he continued with his chemotherapy. On the third day of chemotherapy, we noticed that his face was swelling and turning red. The oncologist said that he was probably just drinking too much Gatorade and he should lay off it. Then, we went home.
"Two days later, Jackson started having chest pains, so we went to the ER again. They said it was probably just indigestion and he should take Maalox. Every time we went in with a problem, they said it was nothing and would send him home. That night, he complained that it hurt when he swallowed. I called his oncologist and she said that it was probably no big deal, just part of the chemo, and he would be fine."
Rita says she and Jackson went back to the ER again because he was sick to his stomach but were sent away with a promise that tests would be done the next day. Unfortunately, Jackson was too sick to go in for tests the next day. He woke up dripping in sweat and complaining that his chest hurt. Rita says she took his temperature on the advice of his doctor, which registered 94.2. The doctor told her to throw the thermometer away because it was faulty.
Jackson said he was feeling well enough later that day to go to a restaurant with a friend, but he noted that his chest pain had moved to the side. Rita said she warned him that it looked as though he was having pain in his lung, but he still wanted to go out. He was only gone long enough to order his meal when Rita got a call from Jackson's friend.
"He told me that Jackson was going to the ER because he couldn't breathe," Rita says. "He could breathe out but not in. So I went to meet them at the ER.
"They did a CAT scan and discovered that Jackson had thrombosis in his jugular veins. Blood clots had moved through his heart and into his lungs. He had a heart attack, which killed the left lower lobe of his lung. I went into the hospital room and Jackson started crying and saying, 'Mom, I don't want to die.' I was sick of that hospital because they didn't seem to know what they were doing, so I called Children's Hospital in Denver and had him Life Flighted (helicoptered) up there.
"When they [doctors at Children's Hospital] saw what happened to Jackson they said it should have killed him. They said he must have had a will to live because he should not have lived through it. When Jackson got to Children's Hospital, they had to give him vitamin K to thicken his blood again because he was so overmedicated that his blood was too thin and they couldn't perform surgery.
"I read about the Heparin and it sounded exactly like what happened to Jackson. He had redness of his upper extremities and facial swelling. I know they flushed the lines with Heparin. The thing is, there was a CT scan done and the person who saw it said that it looked like the chemotherapy port had a kink in the line. I told the oncologist, but she said it was an optical illusion because she couldn't see it. We found out that the tip of the chemo port had disconnected from Jackson's vein, so the Heparin was being injected under his skin. He developed tiger stripes over his sides. We didn't know that until after the first week of chemotherapy was done.
"My son almost died. If I were in a car accident and killed somebody, I would be held accountable. Who is accountable for my son? I read about Heparin--maybe that is what caused the blood clots and the heart attack. I honestly believe that this was caused by the Heparin. I do know that Heparin was used for a lot of stuff, like the surgery and flushing the lines. When the monitor would go off, they would disconnect it and flush more Heparin through it--but it was going off because the port came loose from the vein."
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Although Jackson survived his ordeal, it took a massive toll. He lost part of his lung, which means that he is tired very easily after exertion and sleeps a lot. He is now on disability because of the cancer and because he is missing part of his lung. Rita says that the situation affected Jackson mentally as well, because he is not able to do the things he dreamed of doing with his life.
"I couldn't deal with going through that at my age, how should he deal with it?" Rita says. "I'm just thankful he is still here. But the situation was a mess. It was a nightmare. At Jackson's latest check-up, the doctor said that the spots on his lungs have cleared up. Now, I'm not even certain he really had cancer. He may have gone through all that and not even had cancer at all."