Monday, December 22, 2008

Please read this!!!


SO I'm sure some of you also read Caylan's blog, But I really felt this was important to re-post! The more who are notified of this awful story the better! A life could be saved!

"I am currently in Roseburg, Oregon, where I hosted my
sister-in-law's baby shower yesterday. One guest was
missing - Christina Heyniger Howington. While I have known
Christina since we went to elementary school it had been
quite awhile since I had seen her. However, my brother and
his wife were especially close with her and her husband. She
and her husband, Heath and daughter, Alyssa (13) spent
Thanksgiving with my family in Sunriver last week. She had a
wonderful time and was thrilled that Christmas was near. All
seemed perfect in her world. She was full of life, happy,
energetic, and loved her husband of 17 years and their
daughter.

She began using NuvaRing 2 1/2 months ago and started
having headaches. They were not severe so she didn't pay
too much attention. On Thursday morning, she woke up with a
severe headache and began vomiting. She also became
lethargic and wanted to go back to sleep. Her husband rushed
her to the ER where she had a CT Scan. The first diagnosis
was an aneurysm. She was helicoptered to OHSU in Portland
and the diagnosis was changed to a blood clot. Once in
surgery, surgeons were alarmed to find multiple blood clots
throughout her brain. They tried to get to all of them and
planned to do another CT Scan the following day to be sure
all clots had been addressed. Christina's brain began
swelling and her condition became grave. She was pl aced
into a medically induced coma to address the brain swelling
and was put on life support. By Friday, her condition
worsened and her brain began shutting down. She was taken
off life support in a last attempt to address her brain
swelling, but efforts were halted as it was determined that
her brain had no further activity. Christina lost her life
but became a hero as she was an organ donor. Her lungs are
already in transport to California where they will save
someone's life. Blood clots, however, have been found in
other organs such as her liver.

Doctors are VERY suspicious that this tragedy was the
result of NuvaRing birth control. They said they have had
"hundreds" of cases where women are showing up
with blood clots after using this contraceptive. It is my
goal to honor her life by using her story to save even one
other person from this terrible fate. Please pass this
information along. It's the last effort we can do to
honor a truly amazing woman.

Thank you for reading this.

Jill Chartier Guevara

Augustine Colebrook, CPM, LM



Development Coordinator, Thrive: The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy
Community Midwife, Wise Women Care Associates
Co-Leader and Mentor, Holistic Moms Network

541-488-7272 office
541-550-9692 cell



Artofbirthing1@yahoo.com"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

o my gosh. thats awful!

Saulster said...

Hey Evie. This is Lindsay Sauls. I've actually been using the NR for almost a year now. Using a birth control wasn't something I ever wanted to do because I generally like to be pretty natural about things, but my doctor found that I have endometriosis during my surgery last year so I have to be on the birth control to keep that under control. Most contraceptives put women at risk for blood clots. Well, most of the ones that I've been introduced to, at least. It's really unfortunate that this person died because of it, but it's not just a NR-related problem. It's a risk we take in using many of the different varieties out there, unfortunately.

Anyway, it's nice to see you blogging on blogspot! I think Sophia pointed it out awhile back because I've had both you and your mom's pages on my bookmarks list for awhile. Just went through them today to sort them out. :)