My roommate Sam has leukemia.
Her husband rushed her to the hospital on November 19th with severe pain and difficulty breathing. Her blood sugar was 44 (way too low) and her white blood cell count was 166,000 (way too high). Wellstar then dicked around for two days and watched her numbers fuck up, doing zero additional tests ("well you know it's a holiday weekend so it's hard to get people up here") until they finally actually transferred her to Northside Hospital's oncology center. This is where her (assumed) diagnosis changed from lymphoma to leukemia.
In no uncertain terms, Wellstar almost killed Sam. The ICU staff at Northside confirmed that if they had waited another day she would have died. "Another day and we wouldn't be discussing treatment, we'd be discussing either hospice or funeral."
Everything else is in the gofundme below, but to paraphrase: she had white blood cell buildup around her heart and lungs. Her spleen was also so swollen it was pressing on her heart, lungs, and stomach. Her kidneys started shutting down from trying to filter so many immature white blood cells out of her system. She's been on dialysis, leukapheresis, steroids, and insulin (to combat the rise in blood sugar from the steroids). She's gotten five transfusions of platelets and one regular blood transfusion. We're waiting on biopsy results for the exact form but right now it looks like acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). She's responding well to the treatments she's received so far, but it's still a long road ahead.
It's still very early days so stuff like disability and leave are still being worked out. We're going to have to start paying her insurance out of pocket, not just for her but because their type 1 daughter is also on it.
I keep calling these things "hurdles" but this might actually be a fucking wall. Scalable, for sure, but so much higher than we're used to having to climb. I was originally going to make an update on the house stuff about my partner's raise and the deal we made with the county and how it was going to make the house stuff easier, but instead I am making this post. Believe me, I do not want to be making this post. For several reasons.
The gofundme is here: Thank you and we love you.
