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When April Heath, a 24-year-old teacher, began feeling poorly, she thought she’d just picked up a bug from one of her student classes. “Being a teacher,” she explained, “you pick up what the kids have.” Her doctor diagnosed her as being overstressed and thought she just had an inner ear infection.
Heath was prescribed beta blockers for her anxiety and medication for her ear, but both things only made her feel worse. The dizziness and fatigue persisted, so her boyfriend decided to take her to another doctor for a second opinion.
There, the doctor noticed that her resting heart rate was a shocking 140 bpm. Further investigation revealed that Heath was anemic and had a dangerously low blood count. She was sent to the hospital for more specialized, emergency attention.
At that point, Heath only had four units of blood in her body. (The average person has between 10 and 12 units.)
Her doctors desperately ran tests to determine the root of the problem.
A CT scan eventually revealed that Heath had a 4-centimeter tumor in her stomach. Though it was benign, it had swelled and burst in Heath’s stomach. She was suffering from severe internal bleeding, as well as a blood clot, which had formed as the tumor swelled.
Heath recalled the moment she received the news, “I felt absolutely bombarded by all the medical terms I was hearing. I was crying uncontrollably. I felt lost but I knew in the hospital I was in the best place. I was just trying to take it one step at a time.”
After Heath’s six-hour surgery, where doctors removed the tumor and several lymph nodes, and also reconstruct part of her small intestine, she was deemed well enough to make a full recovery.
Heath is now recovering at home with her boyfriend, and has gradually begun training for flag football and rowing again, “I had wanted to get straight back to training and studying after the operation but the recovery process takes so long. I've had to delay my teacher training but I will finish in December. I'm just grateful to all the hospital staff and how amazing they were.”
