Love Sick

Chapter 6 - A Medical Mystery...

Before either one of us could say anything, Tom suddenly burst through the door.           

“Oh my God, Maria, what happened?” he rushed over to me. “I got here as fast as possible,” he brushed my hair from my face and kissed my forehead. Dr. Hanks cleared his throat and introduced himself. It was clear that he wanted to get back to business. Tom held my hand while he listened to the doctor repeat everything he had just told us. As Dr. Hanks spoke, a few nurses started trickling in. Eventually, Tom, my mom and Dr. Hanks left the room as nurses crossed in front of them to prick me with needles and stick tubes in me. I counted eight nurses, each one bumping into each other as she moved around the bed to reach me. Before I knew it, a parade of doctors walked in, each wearing identical white coats and the same confused, lost expressions. I tried to keep every doctor’s expertise straight in my mind: a hematologist, ophthalmologist, hepatologist and several gynecologists.           

My head was spinning. I tried glancing around the nurses and doctors, willing my mom and Tom to come back inside. After a few minutes, my mental pleading worked and my mom walked in. She nudged her way through the crowd of medical professionals around me.           

“Excuse me, make way for the mother,” she ordered. The nurses and doctors dutifully stepped aside as my mom picked up her post next to my bed.           

I turned to her, “So, what did you find out?” 

My mom shook her head and lowered her voice, “Well, apparently the doctors really don’t know what’s going on with you.”           

“What do you mean? How do they not know?”           

“Dr. Hanks was saying that he’s never seen anything like this in the history of his medical career,” my mom shrugged. She leaned close to me and whispered, “I actually saw doctors crowded in the nurses’ station looking through their medical textbooks and trying to figure out what was going on.”           

I glared at the dozens of tubes and monitors around me. How is any of this even possible? Why is this happening to me? What’s going to happen to my baby?           

The crowd of doctors filtered in and out, each one asking me question after question in an attempt to diagnose me. I had questions for them too: “Is my baby safe?” “What else can we do to induce my labor?” and so on. Unfortunately, none of the doctors felt confident enough to give me any concrete answers. They all just gave me the same disclaimer, said with sympathy and regret at the harsh reality of it all – they had no idea how I was still alive.           

My blood tests showed that I had such a dangerously low amount of red blood cells that death should have been inevitable. As a doctor asked me questions about my prior symptoms, I asked my mom to search on her phone of why red blood cells were important. Her Google search revealed that apparently red blood cells transported oxygen to my lungs, formed blood clots so I wouldn’t bleed to death, carried antibodies to fight infection, helped clean my kidneys and liver, and regulated my body temperature. In other words, without a lot of those cells, my body couldn’t function and I would die. No wonder the doctors were looking at me as if I was a medical marvel. I sort of was.           

A while later, Tom came back inside, his eyes red and devastated. I knew that he had been crying, but I didn’t mention it.           

“Well, Dr. Hanks said he’s going to get you started on a Pitocin drip to hopefully induce labor,” he grabbed my other hand while my mom still held a death grip on the other one. Tom and my mom exchanged worried looks at each other.           

I sensed the need to ease the thick tension in the room. “I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I really need to scratch my nose,” I said. Both my mom and Tom immediately let go, instead my mom busied herself smoothing out my blanket and Tom reached for the remote control for the television. I was relieved to see that reruns of my favorite show “Friends” were on. Maybe it was a sign that everything was going to be okay. My mom and Tom forced chuckles, glancing at me every few minutes as if they expected me to die at any second. I tried to keep myself calm and ignore their terrified looks and the nurse who came in to administer the Pitocin drip.