Red, White & Blue

When you are already reeling from a recent MS discovery, driving up to a building with a big sign out front that reads The Blood & Cancer Center is probably not going to make you happy. I knew I was going to see a hematologist. I did not know that his office would be in the Blood & Cancer Center. That sign might as well have been a giant flashing neon sign. The impact it had on my mental state when I saw it was overwhelming. My heart started to beat faster and I swear, I could barely breath. My legs were weak...Oh yeah, sorry...They were weak before I got there. (MS joke)

When you are going to see a hematologist you assume that you will be keeping your clothes on and that they will be drawing blood. Wrong! The first thing they did was tell me to take off my clothes from the waist up. Excuse me...what do my bare breasts have to do with my blood? Chalk up another one for humiliation.

As I sat there on the examining table in my beautiful open-front hospital gown, tears began to stream down my face. I wasn't prepared for this at all. Not for the BLOOD & CANCER CENTER and not for being bare-breasted anywhere but my bathroom, my bedroom and my gynecologist's office. I was emotionally prepared for needles, not nakedness! You have to work up to these things.

The doctor was very kind and full of the normal questions like "When was your last period?". He used my lymph nodes like a road map, even the ones in my groin area, which again, not prepared for. Next time give me directions, let me know what to expect. Seriously!!!

Eventually they did suck a few tubes of blood out of my arm and the results were good. My white blood count was back to normal. I guess I am not dying of cancer today. The Infectious Disease doctor who saw me while I was in the hospital, (because of my high white blood cell count) mentioned something about consistent elevated white blood cells being a precursor to Leukemia. Why put that in my head? I don't understand that about doctors. Just because you know it, doesn't mean you should always say it. I don't really want to know that I might get Leukemia, I only want to know if I have it!

The next stop, Cleveland Clinic. This time, I am asking what they are going to do to me before I get there. A woman needs to be prepared for these things. A lesson I should have learned when I showed up at the emergency room wearing red panties.