I went to urgent care with symptoms of thrombocytopenia. When they ran my labs, my platelets were pretty low, roughly 50,000 (normal range is above 120,000 and emergency range is below 30,000). I was advised to make an appointment with my primary care doctor ASAP to be referred to a hematologist (as required by my insurance), and to go to the ER if it got any worse before that appointment.
Four days later, it got worse. I was confused, dizzy, uncoordinated, and generally not feeling well. I immediately went to the ER.
Initially, I was treated pretty normally. They put in an IV, drew blood, asked me about my symptoms, all the normal stuff, and they were generally pretty nice about it. But then they had me do patient registration, where I was given the opportunity to put my preferred name and pronouns on my chart, rather than continue to get deadnamed and misgendered, which was causing me additional stress on top of The Symptoms.
They called me my preferred name one time, and sounded very confused doing so. Once they realized I was transgender, the quality of my care immediately declined. No more nice chitchat. No more asking how I was doing. No more smiling.
They sent me home. I got my lab results in my discharge paperwork. My platelets were at 27,000. When I went to my primary care doctor the next day and she saw my labs, she immediately got red in the face.
“What the fuck? They sent you home? They’re supposed to admit you for anything below 30,000! What the fuck were they thinking?”
I didn’t know whether or not she’d believe me if I said it was because I’m nonbinary, so I just said I didn’t know.
She managed to find a hematologist in my network that could fit me in for an emergency transfusion two days later. My platelets were at 12,000 at that point and he said if I’d so much as bumped into something wrong before I got there, I would’ve died.
Don’t ever fucking tell me that nonbinary people have “cissexual privilege”.
