I winced as I felt a wave of pain jet down my spine, the twinge intensifying with each waking breath. I had been used to these throbbing aches running down my back, for I had been experiencing them for a few months now. However, this time was different. I was usually able to slog through the agony by taking an Advil, or even using a heating pad to numb my lower back, but the grave intensity of the pain I felt warned me that tonight was more serious. I gently turned over in my bed to view my tiny green alarm clock, the vivid green numbers illuminating the otherwise dark room surrounding it. The clock read 2:30 in the morning, quickly reminding me that I was the only one awake in my noiseless house. I pondered turning back over, forcing my eyes shut and trying to disregard the feeling, although I had never felt a pain of this caliber before.
Leukemia symptoms often vary depending on the type and severity. The most common signs and symptoms of leukemia include persistent fatigue, weakness, fever or chills, and night sweats. Another indication that Leukemia might be present in the blood is easily bruising or bleeding, as well as recurrent nosebleeds. You should never be dismissive of any symptoms, for sometimes only one of the many symptoms actually shows itself.
Eventually putting mind over matter, I made the vital decision to leave my bed and wander down the dim hallway into my parent’s bedroom. As I limped into their doorway, I watched my parents’ worried eyes turn from closed into squints when they woke up and adjusted to the light I had flipped on just moments earlier. I struggled with each breath as I attempted to explain the excruciating sensation I was experiencing. My words were hard to understand, for my sentences were fil...
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... me pain medicine, but also to draw blood for a variety of tests to discover what was wrong with me. I swiftly agreed, for the minor pain of a simple prick was well worth the relief I would feel once It was all over.
After the nurse drew my blood, she brought in a syringe filled with a clear substance, and she handed my mother and I the tube so we could read the tiny lettering printed on the side. Morphine. I had heard of the potent drug before, and it was hard to believe that it would soon be running through my veins. I instantly relaxed once the strong medicine was pushed into me, finally feeling a sense of comfort I had been deprived of for the last hour. My mother and I were left alone, and I could sense concern on her face. She soon called my Dad who sat at home with my two younger sisters, eagerly waiting to hear about the details of my emergency visit so far.
It was extremely small, but it had a seat with a table next to it and a bunch of blood bags and vials on top. That is where my blood would be drawn. I sat down, freaking out as if my whole life was in danger, it was only going to be one needles poked inside of me, but i knew that it would be in my arm for a very long time. I sat there hyperventilating while my mom finally barked at me “Calm down Jaden! It’s not that big of a deal!”. That did not make me feel better at all, in fact it made things feel worse. I started freaking out even more because not only was I about to do something that I absolutely hated, but I was also being yelled and shamed by my mom. After what felt like hours, a nurse finally walked in and noticed that I was shaking tremendously. She started to show concern as if something were very wrong with me, but my mom told her “He is always like this, don’t worry”. Then that’s when things got awkward and more serious. The nurse started treating me like an eight year old and also mentioned that I should not be worried. “It was all be over soon” she exclaimed. She got out a needle that was
“The house is settling,” my Italian carer would say as the lights dimmed and glowed in her ghostly presence… but this wasn’t all the house did. I slept in my room. Well, not really slept. Sleep was never something I did much of, especially early on. My worries at seven pm far outweighed my need for sleep. Awake. Forever awake. My father had left me. My mother…
I had just finished facing my fears watching the metallic needle slip so seamlessly under my skin into the veins of my nervous, clammy hand. Hugging my Mom like it could have been the last time I saw her, seeing my dad's face stern and worried. I wheeled down the hall into this operating room, white was all I saw, a bed in the middle for the surgery to go down. As I lay on the bed waiting to be put under I remember seeing the blue masks of the people to be operating on me, I had to put all my trust in them, trusting someone you seen for less than 5 seconds with your life. Absolutely terrifying. The nurse slipping the fluid into my IV as I lay on my back looking up at the white ceiling, this cold sensations rushed over me. Then suddenly, I was out.
Darkness seeped from the edges and the world around me began to fade as I counted back from 10. Twelve hours later, a soft “ouch” escaped my breath as the nurses transferred me from one bed to another; just like that, I was out again for the night.
"Selena Gibson" the nurse called out after opening the closed door. I stood up and quickly moved forward toward the nurse. Stepping through the door I was ask to turn to the right and go down the hallway. Walking down the long stretch dragging my feet along the way I was scared to find out what the doctor was going to say. Turning to the left the room looked impersonal and cold. I was asked to seat in the chair and wait till the doctor came in with the results.
While in nursing school I was eager to get in on “action”, I remember just wanting to do something nursing and was always volunteering for things. I would walk the floor on the med surge unit and look for anything interesting. Walking by a patient’s room I seen a gentleman sitting up on the side of his bed looking uncomfortable. I asked nursing question that I knew to ask and got the man help from a nurse who placed the patient on pulse ox and did vital signs. All while my anxiety and adrenaline are at an all-time high while watching this take place, hoping to be able to get in on the action. Within a few minutes rapid response team was called in. The patient was there all alone. The patient was intubated, labs drawn, and bagged. After the patient was put to sleep in the room the rapid response team person allowed me to bag the patient. I was having palpitations of my own and thinking how am I supposed to keep the breaths right on this patient when I couldn’t keep up with my
Leukemia is a cancer of the white blood cells. It begins in the bone marrow, the soft tissue inside the bones. Within the bone marrow is where white blood cells are created, that help fight off bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms within the body that cause infections. The disease develops to when the white blood cells are being produced out of control. The cells that are being produced do not work properly as they should, they grow faster than a normal cell would and don’t know when to stop growing. Overtime, if not treated properly, the white blood cells will over crowd blood cells, creating a serious problem such as anemia, bleeding and infection. Leukemia cells can spread to the lymph nodes and other organs in the body causing swelling and pain.
Paramedics squeeze my arms, staining their gloves a deep red. Doctors and nurses scream at each other as they run across the hallways wheeling me into the operating theatre. I look over to my wrists as clear fluids begin their journey into my veins. My heart is in my throat, my pulse is echoing throughout the room, my limbs are quivering, and my lungs are screaming. Nurses force plastic tubes up my nose, as jets of cold air enter my sinuses, giving me relief. Inkblots dance before my eyes like a symphony of lights. A sudden sleepiness overcomes me and slowly my vision dims.
Leukemia is another type of cancer it is a malignant progressive disease. Some symptoms of leukemia is people weight loss, frequent infections, and easy bleeding or bruising. Also chills, dizziness, fatigue, fever, nausea, night sweats, weakness, or sweating are also side effect or symptoms of leukemia. Most people have to shave their hair of and some people fight the cancer and win. Leukemia involves abnormal white blood cells these cells responsible for fighting infection. The abnormal cell in leukemia does not function in the same way as normal white blood cells do. The leukemia cells continue to grow and divide, eventually crowding out the normal blood cells. There is over 50,000 cases of leukemia occur yearly in the U.S.
I know that PI work is not what it is portrayed in the movies and on television. I’m aware that it is not a black and white, “dark and stormy night”, trench coat wearing endeavor, but it is still finding people, watching them, digging a little deeper in their stories and reporting on them. As I read this, I realize it kind of makes me sound like a stalker, I assure you, I am not. I’m just nosy as all get out.
“Each year in the United States alone, nearly 32,000 adults and more than 2,000 children develop leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells”. Acute and chronic leukemia are the two kinds of the disease. Acute leukemia developments much more rapidly, chronic leukemia advances gradually, and the immune system is damaged slower. (Panno 36). Leukemia is one of many systemic diseases. Each disease affects the body differently. Leukemia affects the immune system, which affects the body by "feeling extremely sick, complaining of recurrent infections, bleeding, bruising, bone tenderness, fever, chills, sweats, weakness, fatigue, headaches, or swelling in the neck, or armpits”. Otherwise, an individual might have not any indications entirely and the disease might be discovered accidental from a checkup blood examination. When finding acute leukemia typically comes to instant hospitalization. Since leukemia victims require numerous transfusions of blood, patients have to be treated at medical establishments. Acute leukemia is treated by chemotherapy, which contains two stages: an initiation stage, where an individual is forcefully treated with a mixture of strong medications to kill the leukemic cells entirely, and a consolidation stage, using the similar or dissimilar medications, and starts as soon as the illness has gone into remission (Mayfield 1). The normal action for leukemia contains radiation and chemotherapy, which destroys the ca...
I was quivering as I sat on the pristinely white sheeted gurney. I had no idea what to expect. Ami sat in a plastic, maroon chair over in the corner and looked at the cold, disinfected, tile floor. The sounds of beeping machines and ticking clock flooded my ears. The nurse knocked on the door and both Ami and I jumped. She handed me a clipboard with some paperwork on it that asked for the basics: name, date of birth, reason for being here, consent to treat, and so on and so forth. I filled it all out the best I could, my mind was lost in another galaxy. Besides, how was I supposed to know what year my father was born in and the phone number to my mother’s work? Once I finished, the nurse took the clipboard and exited the room once again.
As I walked in to their bedroom, I found my mother sitting on the bed, weeping quietly, while my father lay on the bed in a near unconscious state. This sight shocked me, I had seen my father sick before, but by the reaction of my mother and the deathly look on my father’s face I knew that something was seriously wrong.
I wake up in this room. My mother is to my left crying with her face in the palms of her hands. My dad, he paces the floor with his hands in his pockets. I am scared I can barely remember what has transpired. As my mother stands and looks at me square in the eyes, the nurse comes and says with a grin on her radiant face “Hello, Mr. Howard. How are you feeling?” I attempt to sit up, but my body is aching. My dad hurries over to help, but it was no use the pain was overbearing. I began to weep and apologize. My dad with a stern look on his face says, “Andra, you are fine now just relax”. How could I relax? I am stuck in this room with no memory of what happened.
It was a maddening rush, that crisp fall morning, but we were finally ready to go. I was supposed to be at State College at 10:00 for the tour, and it was already eight. My parents hurriedly loaded their luggage into the van as I rushed around the house gathering last minute necessities. I dashed downstairs to my room and gathered my coat and my duffel bag, and glanced at my dresser making sure I was leaving nothing behind and all the rush seemed to disappear. I stood there as if in a trance just remembering all the stories behind the objects and clutter accumulated on it. I began to think back to all the good times I have had with my family and friends each moment represented by a different and somewhat odd object.