Pediatrician interrupts mom talking about her kids in the middle after noticing her odd skin color — it saved her life
As parents, our kids always come first. However, we need to be mindful of our health and bodies too. Many times, moms forget to look after themselves while being too busy taking care of their kids. A mom of three, Laura Hendricks, was just like this until an observation by a doctor made her realize how much she needed to focus on her health, per TODAY. The mom had taken her kids to a pediatrician and was discussing her kids’ conditions with her when the doctor abruptly stopped her to ask how she was doing. The exchange saved her life.
The woman visited the doctor after fearing her kids might be sick with the flu. However, when she was explaining to the doctor about their symptoms and discomfort, the doctor interrupted her. “She really stopped me in the middle of the sentence and said, ‘What’s going on with you?’ and I was really taken aback that she was focusing on me rather than the kids,” the mom recalled. Confused, she responded that she might be “tired and coming down with what they’re coming down with.” The pediatrician was not convinced by the mom’s response and insisted she visit a doctor.
“She challenged me again and said, ‘No, your coloring doesn’t look right. Let me see your hands.’ She looked at them and said, ‘I think you should have some bloodwork done,” Hendricks added. Her mom, too, urged her to pay heed to the doctor’s advice. “She said, ‘I’m not leaving until you make your appointment that the pediatrician wanted you to make because I think something might be wrong,'” she recounted. She cooperated and got the tests done and the diagnosis via email suggested everything was fine. However, the next day, she received repeated phone calls from the hospital.
“The last one was from that morning saying, ‘You need to go to the ER.’ I asked my doctor, ‘What is this about?’ and she said, ‘You need a blood transfusion,’” Hendricks noted. It still wasn’t clear what happened but it was good enough a reason to believe that something was wrong. Few other test results revealed that there was a "problem with the white blood cell count,” and the mom doubted that it could be connected to cancer. However, she ignored her self-diagnosis and decided to wait for the doctor’s opinion. “They said, ‘You have leukemia, and you have an aggressive form of it called AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia).’ The whole world changed,” the mom recalled.
The mom was admitted to the hospital the same day to “quickly” start treatment. After seven months of a whirlpool of emotions, health changes and a lot more, Hendricks was successfully free from cancer. From being fearful and weak to transitioning to a strong and confident woman, the entire process was a life lesson for Hendricks. The mom noted how her children were her reason to keep going when things got unbearable. She founded “Luminaries,” designed to help survivors get back on their feet and live life to the fullest. “I know how hard my survivorship journey was with those advantages. All I want to do is make survivorship easier for other people,” she remarked.