My Doctor Gave Me A Strange Exam. I Researched It Later — And What I Learned Left Me Disgusted.

I looked away from the nurse as she wrapped the tourniquet around my arm and prepared the needle. Then I realized that I was the only patient getting blood drawn. Everyone else was receiving intravenous chemotherapy.

My neurologist referred me to this hematology-oncology practice on the off chance that my cryptogenic stroke was caused by a disease of the blood like lymphoma, leukemia, thalassemia or another clotting disorder.

“Just relax,” the nurse said as she punctured my arm.

I looked a little too closely at the chemo patients.

Don’t stare, I told myself.

As someone healing from illness, I knew that the only person I would want watching me receive treatment would be someone who loved me. So, I closed my eyes as the nurse changed the first of nine vials.

An hour before, I had been looking at a hematologist’s back as he feverishly typed my answers to his long list of questions into a computer.

“Referring doctor?”

“My neurologist.”

“Date of last physical exam?”

“Before the hospital stay?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I saw my gynecologist two months ago.”

“Surgeries?”

“My cardiologist put a loop recorder under my breast to check for arrhythmia.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because I had a stroke two weeks ago and nobody knows why,” I replied. “Do you want to take a minute to look at my test results?”

“No. Are you sexually active?”

I paused.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “Brief history of chief complaint?”

“You want me to describe the stroke?” I asked.

“Yes.”

When I talk about the most terrifying moment of my life, there’s a suspicion — felt as a roving tension between the heart and stomach — that makes me believe words conjure action, like a spell. So, I wanted to ask him how the narrative of my musculoskeletal