I see you Mara…Sit down and have a cup of tea with me

…Oh Crap!!! I thought. The hair on my arms stood up, and I immediately knew that shutting the door was a big mistake. Everything inside me was screaming danger, danger…

It was in the spring of the year 2000. I was doing an internship at the University of Utah’s bone marrow transplant unit, and on this particular day I was screening prospective transplant candidates, by giving them psychological assessments.

Bone marrow transplantation is a difficult and lengthy procedure which has the potential of causing a person to regress emotionally under the strain. It’s important to know in advance potential problems that could arise.

I had just said goodbye to a lovely 15 year-old girl with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, when I walked into the waiting room to get my next patient.  “Mr. So in So, I’m ready for you,”…