Last night when I got home from work I pulled a large white envelope out of my mailbox. I didn’t give it much thought, I let the muppet like dog out to pee, and when we came in I tossed the envelope on the table. I went about my routine, bracelet in the clam shell, sweats replaced my dress pants, and I fed the dog. Mundane I know, yet as I kneelt down to grab the muppet’s bowel the large envelope caught my eye.
It’s a logo that I’ve seen dozens of times, normally it rested on smaller envelopes, never a large one. I quickly dumped food in the muppet’s bowel and grabbed the envelope. I ripped it open and read “After more than five years of hard-fought and difficult litigation, Merck/Organon USA Inc. has agreed to a Settlement Program to resolve the NuvaRing claims. I read that sentence a dozen times, it didn’t sink in, so I took to Google. The NY Times, The Huffington Post, and so many other media outlets validated what my letter said. I needed validation even thou the settlement was laid out in black and white before me, I needed someone else to tell me that I wasn’t dreaming.
To be honest I never thought I would see this day. I never thought Merck would ever come to the table. Yet they have, Merck, maker of the NuvaRing, says it will pay out $100 million to settle thousands of liability lawsuits from women who say they were harmed by using the product. The settlement was offered to about 3,800 women who have filed lawsuits in federal and state courts. In a statement Friday, the company said: “We stand behind the research that supported the approval of NuvaRing, and our continued work to monitor the safety of the medicine.” The above statement falls on deaf ears, I am 1 out of 3,800 I will go to my grave claiming that the NuvaRing turned my world upside down and injured me. I know in my heart that the NuvaRing is bad news bears, however in the eyes of Merck I am just a casualty, I am the collateral damage they planned for, and I will be nothing more to them.
Tears are still falling even as I write this. Sure I am angry just like everyone else, however I know it makes no sense to beat a dead horse. We wore the white hat, we fought the good fight, yet in the end it wasn’t enough. $100 million seems like pennies compared to the amount Merck’s pockets hold. However this is the only offer and if 95% of women do not opt in, we risk losing it all. I never went into this to become rich, I wanted to stand up for myself and to prevent other women from enduring my fate.
I never had a number in mind, because Merck can never give me back what I want. No one has the power to turn back time and undo the wrongs. Then again on the same coin, I wouldn’t trade what happened to me. The NuvaRing was my sling shot, in a moment of sheer disaster my passion was born. I could have been just another cup of ashes in an urn, instead of an urn I got to see my 27th themed Halloween birthday cake. Almost dying 5 days before your birthday changes your perspective.
Merck brought the NuvaRing into my life, I chose to use it, but I did not chose to have it almost kill me. In all honesty I had no idea that the NuvaRing could cause thrombotic events. Hell I didn’t even know what a pulmonary embolism was until the exact moment I was diagnosed. In that moment my life was changed forever, I lost my sense of youth and was thrown in to survival mode. It looked bleak, my clot sat in a shitty spot and my lungs were dying, yet I pulled through. Because that is what I do. I operate best in a crisis, mainly because I just keep on keeping on and throw caution to the wind.
My lung has healed, my heart is strong, yet I am empty inside. Empty because of complications due to my pulmonary embolism I can never have children. To be honest I went on the NuvaRing in an attempt to regulate my cycle in hopes to get my hormones in order so that I could become pregnant. A lot of my friends went on it, they got babies and I got a blood clot. I got the shitty hand while they were dealt the motherhood card. I can never be on hormonal contraceptives or under go fertility treatments because I now have an increased risk of blood clots. If by the grace of God I were somehow able to conceive I would need to be put on blood thinners as soon as possible. This in its self is a risky decision, because I run the chance of giving birth to a child who is anticoagulant dependent. Like I said the risks are far to great and at the end of the day I must play the cards I have.
I want more than anything to have a child of my own. Merck will never be able to restore my ability to have children, they will never be able to make me whole. My heart aches when I hold a new born, I feel that tug, yet I know it was never meant to be. The NuvaRing crushed my dreams, I will never know what its like to carry a child and I will never get to hold a baby of my own. This, this is something Merck cannot put a price tag on. They just chalk it up to collateral damage and promise to monitor the product.
In there eyes I am nothing more than collateral damage, my quality of life means nothing to them, my struggles are mine and mine alone. The only thing they care about are the profits that the NuvaRing rakes in, so what if it damages a woman and crushes her dreams of motherhood. For every victim there is another woman to take her place in the pharmacy line.
If you would like to read more about the NuvaRing Settlement Please visit the following:
Birth Control And Blood Clots: Women Still Weighing The Risks http://n.pr/1dvY3OZ
Federal judge in St. Louis endorses $100 million settlement offer for NuvaRing cases : Business http://bit.ly/1h71yk2
Merck To Pay $100 Million In NuvaRing Settlement http://huff.to/1g2BAxr
Merck to pay $100 million in NuvaRing contraceptive settlement http://reut.rs/1jkdWAn
Have Bear Will Travel 
I stumbled upon your page in the middle of the night while I was checking out my case with nuvaring. I to almost died in July 2007. I remember when I inserted the nuvaring and within 2 days I was light headed and just didn’t feel right. The next day I took it out, the day after that…i don’t remember. My sister and I were living together with our children, i had three and she had two. We had both gone through a divorce and we decided to support each other during that time. She told me, I was hallucinating and stating that I had to go have dinner with the President, but not just any president. It had to be President Clinton at the time because he was my favorite President..My sister told me I said all of this and at first she thought I was playing and thought I had a little cold and fever. But the next day I was the same way and I wasn’t eating ANYTHING. she had to force feed me fruit and water. She became afraid for me and called the ambulance, she said they had to hold me up going down the stairs because I couldn’t walk straight. Although I was overweight I never was sickly..ever. The first hospital visit I don’t remember, my sister said I had gotten really dark and I looked like I had death on me. They ran all kinds of test and sent me home after two days (which is just crazy to me). I recalled when I got home everything was “hazy” it was like I was living in a dream..I was slower, my thoughts were slower, my speech was slower, and I would get confused really easy. IT was like I was living between being a asleep and awake at the same time. So the doctor calls the house and tells my sister to bring me back right away..They located two blood clots on my brain. So they took me back and that time I remember everything. The nurses and the doctors. They literally saved me, they took care of me, and when I left the hospital that time, they wouldn’t allow me to go home. I had to go to my mother’s house in VA (I was in NC) to recuperate she had the space and was able to monitor me better. My children had to stay with there dad for a little while. I couldn’t even take care of myself or my own children. I had lost almost 100 pds in a little over a month while I was in and out of the hospital because I just wasn’t eating much. Thank God I was a big girl before hand that extra fluff helped save me from malnutrition :). I would forget all the time, I lost everything..I had no money, no home, I was living with my parents..it was a long road back. Now my life has completely changed. I have a new husband, my children are home, and I also have a new addition little girl :). THey told me the same thing about the blood thinners, I had two miscarriages before I had her and I had her at 32 weeks. But thank God she’s fine and you would never know she was born weighing 3lbs 15 oz.. I never went on the blood thinners, when the doctor evaluated my blood he stated I didn’t have a problem. Which further helped me to realize that nuvaring was the cause of my strokes. But as for me, thank God I made a full recovery. The settlement is a “give them something to get out of my hair” situation. But it’s better than nothing and because of nuvaring my life completely did a 180. So I’ll take there settlement I opted in. Thank you for the blog and I pray all is well with you. 🙂
Nikkia would you be willing to post your Nuvaring story on nuvaringtruth.com
It’s important for women to talk about their experiences while using NuvaRing
Hi Jay, yes absolutely, just let me know what I need to do to post on the site.
It’s. So important that women speak up and stand up. Thank you for your post about NuvaRing.