When she was in high school, Meghan McDonald, 20, felt she could
not tell her private dance instructor about her type 1 von
Willebrand disease (VWD). It wasn’t that she was embarrassed by
the nosebleeds or muscle bleeds. It was that, for weeks at a
time—clad only in a leotard and tights for up to three hours a
day, five days a week—she had a heavy period that required
frequent bathroom breaks. McDonald was mortified talking about
her period. “No girl wants to be thought of as the one with bad
hygiene,” she says. “I was very self-conscious, always worrying
if blood was running down my leg or whether I started to leak
when I stretched. It made it hard to concentrate.” McDonald, a
native of Louisville, Kentucky, is now a junior dance major at
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. [Steps for Living:
Importance of Hygiene] For many girls with bleeding disorders,
physical education class, exercise and participating on sports
teams are complicated not just by the risk of nosebleeds or
joint or muscle bleeds,