thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura

Yesterday as I took off to run some errands, I called Julie to see what she was up to since I've barely talked to her over the past week while she worked long hours and I did generic busythings. When she answered the phone, she was out of breath and told me that she needed to come over to my house because she was too dizzy and nauseous to drive home.

She rested on the futon in my sewing room for a while, as I bustled around to try to make her feel better. But instead of feeling better, she started to feel worse, her face grew paler, her lips went from white to bluish, and she started to throw up.

When we got to the emergency room, they immediately took her to an interviewing room to assess her condition. She got a room, and IV, and blood tests quicker than I've ever seen, and after a few hours she was admitted to the hospital proper.

There were two doctors and a bunch of nurses to examine her, and they seemed to lean towards a liver, kidney, or blood disorder. I began to realize how serious the situation was when I asked how long she'd be in the hospital, right after we learned she'd have to stay the night, and the woman at the nurse's desk implied it would be more than three days.

I stayed with Julie in her room until she finally got a medication strong enough to relieve her nausea, which also helped her sleep. The nurses told us she would have a blood specialist in the morning.

Still, when I called Julie the next morning, I wasn't prepared to hear that she had already had a CAT scan, and that the doctors thought she had a blood disorder. I rushed in and sat through a number of doctors, nurses, and specialists come in to poke at her and ask the same questions. A few had the serious talks with us, and made sure that I was ready to be responsible for her health care decisions. They told us that they think she has TTP, and that her immune system is attacking her blood cells and platelets. She'd be getting a catheter in her neck for a complete plasma exchange. I sat with her until they took her down to the ICU.

I'm picking up her parents at the airport tonight, from Chicago.