Twenty-eight years old. Yikes.
Of course, she isn’t without her share of medical problems, but it still was rather unexpected… even more so was the cause.
You see, she was born with Mosaic Turner Syndrome. Some relatively-significant fraction of her body’s cells are missing an X-chromosome, leading to developmental weirdness as she grew. In her case, she has Type I diabetes, and is very small (4-foot-something). She also has high blood pressure, for whatever reason, which seems to be the crux of the current problem…
Apparently she just recently found out that she was pregnant, through a home pregnancy test. With the Turner Syndrome, regular periods just are not a thing anyway, so I guess she must of just started feeling “off” enough that she investigated on her own. Turner Syndrome also generally leads to infertility, so the new development was probably quite shocking.
Unfortunately, as is all too common in the US, my sister is POOR. Very much so. And so, rather than go to a doctor that she couldn’t afford to see anyway, she took it upon herself to halt her blood pressure meds, just in case they might hurt the baby. And on Saturday, a headache bad enough to make her get ready to head out to the ER turned into a full-blown stroke on the way, complete with life-flight from Rapid City, South Dakota to Denver CO. Complete loss of movement in the left arm, very little movement in the left leg, inability to speak, all the things we all know about.
Thankfully, five days later, she has regained the ability to speak, move her arm, and even walk (assisted), though these all take a lot out of her. I just received word from our mother that she has lost the baby today, and I don’t yet know what the impact from that news is for her- she is currently unreachable by phone. I’m not sure how long she is going to be stuck in a Denver hospital, or out of work, or how long her recovery is going to be…
Anywho, just wanted to get this all down in type for whatever reason. And add- any healthcare system that causes somebody to even have to do the calculus of seeing versus not seeing a doctor for a MAJOR HEALTH ISSUE is a fundamentally flawed system. Full stop.
