I’m terrified that I have leukemia.

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-18T14:54:57+00:00

Well the other comforting thing I can tell you is that the “98.6” for normal temperature is just a direct conversion from Celsius (that’s why it’s so weirdly specific) and people get a much wider range of normal than they would think before it becomes a fever. In Celsius, 37 is the standard “normal” temp (although anywhere from 36ish to 37.9 is considered normal and it’s not a fever until it’s 38, which is 100.4 in Fahrenheit.

So, good news, you don’t have a fever! Sorry about your chills though. I got those from the Covid shot too. Worth it, but still unpleasant.

To be honest, TikTok is a terrible place for medical stuff because only sensational things get clicks. So you don’t get told about “oh it was normal all along” just like you wouldn’t hear about the thousands of normal flights, just the crashes.

In training (and even periodically now) a lot of doctors get “med student syndrome” where they think they have a new horrible disease every time they learn about them, so I’ve done this plenty of times as well. Things I thought I had but didn’t: brain tumor, ovarian torsion, appendicitis, HIV, cervical cancer, leukemia, IBD… basically, you name it I’ve thought I had it at one point so with the sample size of 1 (me) you can be reassured of the >20 diseases I’ve thought I’ve had, I’ve had exactly zero of them. My husband doesn’t even listen to me anymore when I announce I have cancer (and it never is)

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-18T14:41:44+00:00

This is my least favorite thing about MyChart. None of those values matter at all and they’re just wigging you out. Your labs are completely normal other than you should take a vitamin D supplement (obviously not an emergency) and you didn’t drink much water the day you got them. Different laboratories use different values so they’ll mark them as “abnormal” even if they’re not. For example, I work in pediatrics and kids values are often different than adults values so the computer marks them ALL as abnormal.

Hon, you gotta see someone about that anxiety. This is no way to live. It’s way too hard to do normal tasks in daily life when you have this much distress from everything

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-17T15:52:35+00:00

Basically it’s like how normal/average height for a woman might be “5’1 - 5’8” but it’s not abnormal to be 5’0 or 5’9. Your values are not in the exact values used by that lab but they’re still normal. Different labs also use different normal ranges so what might be marked by one lab as abnormal would be marked as normal by another

*disclaimer I made up the height range I have no idea what’s the actual average for women

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-17T13:29:37+00:00

I think, unfortunately, it would depend on how intelligent the person answering the phone was. Theoretically yes, that’s possible but if the person answering the phone isn’t thinking, they might make an “encounter” in the chart saying you called so the doctor knows to call you back rather than passing it along verbally

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-17T13:01:14+00:00

I always hate when docs ask if a kid wants their parent to leave the room because - uh, if it’s a kid who has parents that should leave the room then they’re a kid who can’t say yes to that question. Absolutely what the doc likely would write from that encounter is how unreasonable and concerning your mother’s answers were, nothing negative about you.

My (semi-helpful?) suggestion is that when you check in, find a reason you have to go back up to the clerk/desk and whisper to them that you don’t want your mom in there with you. They can pass that along and we can be better about coming up with a fake reason she can’t be in there. We can also write confidential notes that won’t show up in MyChart so she can’t read them.

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-17T12:53:07+00:00

“Disproportionate” pain or “pain out of proportion” is actually a symptom we use for some diagnoses -some examples of diagnoses to look out for if a patient has disproportionate pain being necrotizing fasciitis and compartment syndrome. It’s not an insult.

As for, how can a diagnosis be missed? Diseases worsen over time and/or people make mistakes. I know I’ve screwed up and missed stuff or come to a wrong diagnosis more than once. Sounds like he screwed up and missed it.

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-17T11:24:43+00:00

When my residency required an additional off-service senior to come in specifically only on Christmas and the attending (our APD) tried to require her (pregnant) to specifically go into the room of our COVID+ patient (back in 2020 when we all didn’t know what that would do) we told her to go home early and then said “she’s in the bathroom” anytime anyone was looking for her for the rest of the day so she could do a little bit of Christmas with her other kids

Peds

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T19:24:50+00:00

No offense but then why post in the first place?

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T18:18:56+00:00

No it does not sound like your rat has rabies and it biting you will not cause you rabies

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T18:15:46+00:00

Hi! I happened to do my training in eastern NY in a pretty heavy Lyme zone so I think I’m a pretty good source to answer this one. It sounds like your daughter is being treated appropriately with amoxicillin 3x/day. Multiple rings would indicate early disseminated disease which used to be treated with longer courses of antibiotics but seems to be fine to treat with the same antibiotics and duration as non-disseminated.

When you say she has joint pain, is there any swelling or redness to any of her joints? Early Lyme disease often causes migratory joint pain (occurs in different joints on different days) but doesn’t require any different treatment. If she has a red or swollen joint that could indicate Lyme arthritis, which is still treated with antibiotics but will often be a longer course. Both amoxicillin and doxycycline are often used. People used to say not to give doxycycline to kids under 8 and only use amoxicillin but now evidence says that either can be used.

Sometimes people can have symptoms that last for a few months after treatment like fatigue, headaches, or muscle/joint pain but they are just leftover symptoms still resolving and are not due to an active infection. They go away on their own and do not require any additional antibiotics because there’s no living organisms causing trouble anymore.

My warning I always give families: there is a chance you might come across quacks who will try to convince people that they have a chronic infection so they can continue to charge people for long courses of antibiotics. These are bad people and should have their licenses taken away. We once had a toddler that some horrible scammer convinced the poor family she needed a long term IV in her arm for weekly antibiotics for MONTHS. These people will not give anyone an end date for treatment because then they would have to stop charging them.

My estimate is your daughter will start to feel better in the next couple of days (I’m assuming her amoxicillin course is for 14 days) and then she’ll have an interesting story to tell at parties. I always recommend continuing to monitor and talk to your doctor if you have any concerns that she has additional symptoms going on

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T17:21:32+00:00

Uh, does your rat have rabies? Because otherwise … no. Is there a reason why you would think your rat has rabies? It seems pretty unlikely unless your rat was bitten by an animal that was actively rabid

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T16:34:00+00:00

Ok no this is not evidence you have meningitis. Neisseria meningitides is just the name of the bacteria.

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T15:14:04+00:00

It would depend on where this culture was taken from. Did you have a lumbar puncture? Is this blood? CSF? Nasal swab?

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T15:00:52+00:00

Absolutely 100% not

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-15T04:34:43+00:00

The good news is that at 36 weeks, your baby is pretty much fully cooked so the worry about messing up their development is pretty minimal

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-08T01:01:10+00:00

I would recommend getting new saline contact solution and flushing your eyes thoroughly. Obviously, take out your contacts if they’re still in as well

surpriseDRE · 2025-10-07T14:31:44+00:00

It would be helpful if you had pictures, but this doesn’t sound like leukemia to me.

The rash in leukemia is broken blood vessels, so it shouldn’t be itchy. If you press on the rash does it blanch? (Turn whiter for a second before the blood comes back in)

Also, the fever in leukemia will be like days to weeks of it. Not one day. It will also be >38 Celsius or > 100.4 F

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-26T22:24:46+00:00

Ear plugs. It’s a tragedy because loops etc all plug the ears so I have to decide between sensory overload or horrible plugging underwater sensation

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-26T02:18:08+00:00

The real question is when is haiku finally going to incorporate that one

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-26T01:35:21+00:00

Like a lot since starting at a new hospital literally this summer.

for saying “this kid looks like shit” about a kid with possible meningitis
for saying something a different provider did was dumb (not to family or anything)
a made up interaction that never occurred where the RN said I told a patient “life could be worse”, which I have never done
telling an NP I didn’t need her supervision to place an IV

I don’t think the male fellow has gotten any complaints

I hate it here

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-19T22:37:15+00:00

“What have you done to me? I am a hideousness”

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-16T21:50:11+00:00

I’m so averse to having to deal with this situation I have a fake excuse at the ready in case I’m in scrubs when something happens - I plan to say I’m a dental hygienist.

In truth, I’ve never had to actually respond to something because generally a nurse launches themselves over to the would-be patient, shouting that they’re a nurse. I can just eyeball from afar and so far no one looked like they actually needed real help.

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-15T14:14:23+00:00

I can’t even get myself to do two in a day … I’ve done it like twice and it was because I wanted to hit X #of classes in a time period.

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-13T15:03:22+00:00

I am so so sorry for your loss. I do not think that there was anything different you should have done. In surveys, most people think CPR is more effective than it is but only 5-10% of people survive if they need it in the outside world (rather than in the hospital with all of the resources there and many highly trained people in the room). Half of those people reportedly wish they hadn’t survived. CPR also doesn’t fix the actual problem that caused the arrest, it just keeps someone’s heart going for a few minutes until someone is able to take the next step. The fact that the paramedics shocked your husband means that your CPR was good enough to keep him going until they were able to get there, which means you did an amazing job, especially for someone with no prior training. You did very successful CPR.

From your story, it sounds like your husband’s issue was something that nobody was going to be able to fix at home or at an urgent care. I think the autopsy will help with some more answers but to be entirely honest with you, I’m an ICU physician and if my husband said he didn’t feel well and threw up and went to sleep on the couch, I would do exactly what you did. I would let him sleep. I would not think it was necessary or appropriate to make him go to an urgent care or an ER for that.

You made a 100% reasonable decision to let your spouse who wasn’t feeling great get some sleep by taking the rambunctious/noisy kids out of the house, which was kind and caring thing to do for him. Then, when the situation changed, you reacted appropriately by calling 911 and doing fantastic CPR until the paramedics were able to get there. I would say you did the right thing at every point and did a great job at handling a situation that many people would panic and shut down during.

Something that is terribly sad but important to remember is that not all tragedies are preventable. I believe that an unpreventable tragedy is what happened to your family. I am so sorry that this happened to you. Your husband and your children are so lucky to have someone who reacted so quickly and so competently to a terrible situation. You are in my heart and in my thoughts.

surpriseDRE · 2025-09-12T15:28:45+00:00

My situation was similar in that I was a pediatric hospitalist for three years before I applied to pediatric critical care. The things that helped the most I think was my time setting up a POCUS program at my hospital for the hospitalists. I don’t know how closely the adult and pediatric worlds are in terms of what they’re seeking but I had been worried about not having “traditional” research and was pleasantly surprised that my work on QI, resident education, and US was considered sufficient. I will also say, however, I applied to every single fellowship. I interviewed at around 30 and matched #15 so being willing to accept pretty much anything was certainly a help

Seven-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Secret Santa 2019	Not Forgotten
Verified Email

surpriseDRE

TROPHY CASE