Healthcare worker thought bruises were from banging against hospital equipment - it could have cost her life

A healthcare worker blamed her leg bruises on banging into hospital machinery, only to discover they were potentially deadly blood clots that may have been due to her contraceptive pill. Summer Mason says she noticed two bruises appear on her left leg last month. The 24-year-old, who works in a hospital as a trainee perfusionist - operating life support equipment, says she initially put the bruises down to banging her leg on life support machinery at work. But Summer says she became suspicious of the red bruises a few days later when she first noticed them becoming darker in colour. After a third red bruise appeared on her leg a week later, Summer went to A&E where she was diagnosed with blood clots. She said doctors told her the blood clots were a result of her taking a combined oral contraceptive pill. Summer used pill for four years from the age of 17 to 21. She then took a two-year break from 2023 onwards, before she started using the pill again last October. The NHS website lists blood clots as one of the potential side effects of taking the combined oral contraceptive pill due to increased levels of oestrogen, which raise the risk of blood clot formation. Summer has stopped using the contraceptive pill for now and wants to warn other women about the potential side effects so they can make the best and most informed decisions for themselves. Summer, from Blackpool, Lancashire, said: "I noticed the bruises on my leg and I work with big machines so I just thought that I'd banged my leg on that. I work at the hospital and when there's emergencies, everyone's running all over the place. "After nearly a week, I started thinking they weren't bruises - they didn't change colour when I pressed them and that's when I started worrying." Summer said her mum suspected that the red patches on her leg could have been caused by insects. She said: "My mum thought they were bites - they did look quite like them but they weren't itchy so I knew that they weren't bites. "I take anti-histamines quite a lot for allergies and if I was taking them then [if they were bites] they would have gone down." Summer went to her GP on August 21 after the 'bruises' continued to change colour and became 'hot to the touch'. She was diagnosed with thrombophlebitis, an inflammatory condition that causes a blood clot to form and block one or more veins, usually in the legs. Though deaths are rare, there is a risk of complications such as if a clot breaks free and travels to the lungs to cause a block in blood flow that can trigger a pulmanory embolism which can prove fatal. Summer then went to A&E a few hours after the initial diagnosis because a third blood clot suddenly appeared on her left leg. Summer said: "They kept going slightly darker and then they'd go red again, every day they'd look a slightly different colour but it still felt like a massive lump under my leg. It was hot to touch and really painful. "I ended up going to A&E as well because another one flared up the same day that I went to the doctors so there was a new clot. There were three main areas on my leg [where the clots were]." Summer said: "The doctors said the blood clots were caused by me taking the contraceptive pill. I was quite worried. I knew it wasn't as serious as what it could have been but I think I was quite concerned that it had happened to me. "When you get given the pill [you think there's a lower chance of clots] if you've got no family history, if you've not got high blood pressure and if you don't drink and don't smoke. I fit those categories so I didn't think I'd ever have something like this." Summer, who had used the pill since she was 17, was devastated by the diagnosis. She said: "I just feel quite shocked, they say the rates [of getting a blood clot] are really low, then you just think about how many people take it, all your friends are on it. "Especially when you start [taking] it at 17, you don't think about the consequences like that. You hear that it's something that might happen but you just don't really think that it will happen to you." Summer has stopped taking the contraceptive pill since the diagnosis and was prescribed a heparinoid cream to help break down the blood clots in her leg. She says she may have reconsidered taking the pill in the first place if she knew that this would happen, and is unsure whether she'll take it again. Summer said: "If I knew that this was going to happen then I probably would have re-think my options a little bit more. It's difficult because a lot of young girls don't want to get pregnant and it helps with a lot of other things, so it's quite tricky really. "I just wish there was some other magical medication that didn't come with all the risks. A lot of the time the benefits do outweigh the risks, it's just that this time it's been the other way round." Summer is urging other women to go to the doctors as soon as possible if they experience similar symptoms. She said: "My advice would be if you see something like that, don't just leave it - because that's what I did, I just left it to heal thinking it was a bruise. "The thought was there that it could have been a clot but I didn't think that I fit any of those categories to be at risk of it. Go and get it sorted as soon as. If you leave it and more show up on your leg, or maybe one shows up in your groin, or you get pain in your calf, that's when it's really concerning."