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Health and Medicine

The patient provider

Carolina grad Danielle Harris was shocked to learn that she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Two years ago, after taking an exam in the Physician Assistant (PA) Program at Campbell University, Danielle Harris and her classmates remained in the classroom to discuss their answers to the exam questions. While they were debriefing, the conversation turned to the bruises on the back of Danielle’s legs, which her father, James, had noticed one evening in the kitchen of the family’s home in Knightdale.

Danielle asked her classmates what they thought the marks could be. The students had gathered enough medical information during their first year of PA school to speculate on the cause. Their diagnoses ran the gamut from bruises to bug bites to cellulitis.

“I thought they could be from a spider bite,” recalled Danielle, a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate. “Nothing stood out about how I was feeling at the time. I was a little tired, but not exhausted. I attributed that to the stress of school – to taking exams and meeting deadlines.”

She admits that she wasn’t overly concerned, nor was her boyfriend, Darryl, who was working at a law firm in Boston.

“We spoke about the bruises on the phone,” Darryl remembered, “but I reassured her that there was nothing to worry about.”

Her mom, Sheila, an operating room nurse at Central Prison in Raleigh, noticed another symptom, in addition to the bruises. Sheila has worked in health care her entire professional life – at WakeMed, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, and Central Prison – and she pointed out swelling in Danielle’s lymph nodes.

A few days later, after Danielle felt dizzy in class, a classmate took her to campus health, where the PA did a full examination. The results were unrevealing, so the PA drew labs, which revealed that Danielle’s white blood cell count was low. Danielle was referred to UNC REX Healthcare for further testing. When the results came back, Danielle was shocked to learn that she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Pediatric Treatment, Young Adult Patient

James Harris, a lifelong North Carolina resident, has been a Carolina basketball fan for as long as he can remember. When it came time for Danielle to select a college after graduating from Southeast Raleigh High School in 2006, there was no question where she would go. Years later, however, when James and Sheila received news of Danielle’s diagnosis, basketball couldn’t have been further from his mind. As parents, they wanted the best care possible for Danielle, wherever it took them. Fortunately, they had great local options.

“Do you want Duke or Carolina?” he asked Danielle.

Danielle laughs about her response. “I said, ‘Duh – Carolina.’”

At the time of her diagnosis, Danielle was 26 years old. She had graduated from college at UNC-Chapel Hill and from graduate school in public health at UNC-Greensboro, begun her physician assistant training at Campbell, and was excited about her future personal and professional experiences. By all measurements, she was an adult – all measurements except for one, that is.

To keep reading, see: http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2016/august/patient-and-provider