Before the First Day

Well, I spent alot of time in the hospital. Alot of strange, inexplicable medical phenomena have occured in the past few weeks. And since I have some time on my hands, maybe I can entertain and enlighten as to the journey of a hospital patient with a strange and rare disorder... and a side helping of complications.



"Hey Ness."

It's Wednesday evening. I've taken a couple days off work because of a bad case of the flu. I look down at the chair, my hands fidgeting over the top brace. My wife looks at me.

"I...uh... don't want to freak you out. But my urine's dark."

She blinks. She's less surprised than I thought she'd be. She already knows. That's better than I thought.

"Yeah, you're a little yellow."

"We can do this right? We have money? I have a good health plan. We have family. It'll be alright."

Vanessa nods. She's doing OK, I can tell. I'm glad. We both knew this might happen again someday. I've had it three times in the past, once when I was sixteen, and two bouts close together the summer before Vanessa and I got married.

So, without blood work, without an official diagnosis, without a hospital visit, I know: I have Auto-Immune Hemolytic Anemia. An impressively rare immune disorder that involves an over-eager, overactive immune disorder chewing through my red blood cells like German troops through a French border. My skin is yellow because because the breakdown of blood produces bilirubin, a blood byproduct which makes your arm turn yellow a few days after you get punched. My urine's dark because my kidneys are expelling dead blood out of my system as my body kills it.

I'm not really nervous at this point, I've done this before. Hey, it's like a vacation, right? Get jacked up on steroids, sit in a hospital room for a couple of weeks, play some video games. Wait for the hemolysis to taper off. Maybe a transfusion. It'll be a mini-vacation. Right?

"So, I guess we'll call your work. Tell them you won't be in for a while. Then off to the U of A."

The Wetaskiwin Hospital is three blocks away, but I know in all likelihood they've only read about my condition in textbooks. Same with the Leduc Hospital, Gray Nuns, Royal Alex, or any other hospital in the province. They wouldn't know what to do with me.

So the next morning I call work and tell them not to expect me for a few weeks. I pack a bag with clothes, magazines. We start to drive.




Next.... emergency.