Responses, knowledge of disease vary among hospitals

It was a week and a day before Christmas and Nikita Toney thought she was going to die in a Mesa hospital from a mistreated sickle cell crisis.

A day later, during the Dec. 18, 2024, Zoom meeting of the Glendale Sickle Cell Support Group, Toney said this was the worst pain she had ever felt. Coming from Toney, 50, who also suffered a stroke, a pulmonary embolism and a transient ischemic attack, it was quite a statement.

“The doctor ... I was lucky enough to grab him and get a hold of him and say, ‘My hip hurts like no other pain I’ve had,” Toney said during the Dec. 18 meeting. “He said he was going to do a CAT scan. They actually saw evidence that my hip has something called a vascular necrosis. Which means I’m sickling all the way d

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