On January 25, 2008, I received a call from a doctor I was referred to but hadn’t yet seen. He said, “How close are you to the hospital?”I had gone to a doctor the day before and shown her large bruises on my arm and my thigh, a pattern of small purple spots on my chest, and a few places where I thought I had bled spontaneously. I had been ignoring the problem for over a month. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
My mother had spotted the one on my thigh when I was visiting the weekend before, and asked how it happened. I jokingly told her I was into S&M. She was worried about the bruises but I told her I must have hit something and didn’t remember. In multiple places? Well, it didn’t make much sense, but I was beginning to worry and couldn’t really deal with it.
But when the spots appeared, and then I started bleeding for no reason, even I had to admit it was time to stop talking to Dr. Mom and call my real doctor.
On January 24, 2008, the doctor took a look and didn’t seem too concerned, but she ordered a blood test and gave me a referral to a hematologist. The hematology group is in the same building, so I ducked upstairs to get the appointment. When I got there they were closed, but I saw that the sign actually said it was hematology and oncology. I knew what oncology meant, and I left in a hurry, freaking out about what that could mean for me.
I called for my appointment the next morning, and was told that the hematologist used a triage system for patients. He screened all test results to determine how soon a patient would need to be seen. The nurse said she would call me back that day or the next with my appointment.
She called back a couple hours later, only she didn’t give me an appointment.
“Nancy, I have the hematologist on the line for you.”
“Ok.”
He got on the line and introduced himself. My heart was dropping through my stomach.
And that’s when he said, “How close are you to the hospital?”
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