In March 2015, Laura Molloy went to her campus doctor. She had been feeling unwell. The next few hours would change her life forever. She writes for Culture about her new Documentary On One production, The Announcement, which revisits the events - listen to it above.
I remember mindlessly scrolling through Instagram while sat in the college doctor's office in D.I.T (Dublin Institute of Technology) I was waiting for my name to be called. I’d this feeling something was wrong. But at the same time I'd been too nervous to get checked out. I was afraid they were going to tell me I was terminally ill, or that I'd some rare condition.
Looking back now, it was stupid to not go to the doctor earlier.
"Laura Molloy?"
Someone stuck their head around the door and called my name.
I pulled an awkward half smile, waved to make myself known and then nervously walked in to meet the doctor.
She was lovely, but after telling her how run down I'd been and how I couldn't lose weight, she asked: "Could you be pregnant?"
I was shocked — because I was still getting my period, and had actually taken a test that confirmed I wasn't pregnant, just six weeks earlier.
It was my first time doing a pregnancy test and I’d taken it in college. And the relief when it showed negative was instant. Straight after, I rang my boyfriend of two years, Luke, and told him the news.
It was like a weight had been lifted off both our shoulders. But if I wasn't pregnant, then what was actually wrong with me?
The doctor took my blood pressure and questioned me about my diet and lifestyle.
She said she wanted to totally rule out a pregnancy and asked me to take another test. I agreed, just to prove I wasn't lying about taking the other one a few weeks earlier. I anxiously waited for the test result to appear, but again, in big bold writing the result came up - NEGATIVE.
The doctor immediately ruled out a pregnancy and gave me a full examination. I mentioned I was on prescribed medicine for heartburn and she asked me to lie down. She began lightly pressing on my ribs and stomach. She listened with a stethoscope on my chest and then put more pressure on my stomach, pushing down hard on certain points and that's when she froze.
I remember I closed my eyes and tried to hold back tears because I was certain she was going to say she'd found a tumour.
With my eyes closed, my mind started to race back to California where 12 months earlier, I’d been preparing for the summer of a lifetime in LA. I’d travelled with Luke on the J1 student visa programme and I tried to focus on our then daily trips to Venice Beach, walking through Santa Monica and all the frat parties we enjoyed.
But all of a sudden, my dreamy thoughts were disturbed by the doctor: "You need to go to the hospital - immediately" she said.
My entire body tensed up: "You just have to get checked as soon as you can," she followed. Instinctively, I knew it was something big, but I couldn’t have known that my condition was about to turn conventional medical thinking on its head and change my life forever.
To find out what happened next to Laura, listen to Documentary On One: The Announcement – Saturday at 1pm, with a repeat Sunday at 7pm – or listen online above. You can listen to more from the Documentary On One archives here.
