The patient was a petite 80-year-old white-haired woman in pressed Bermuda shorts. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Schulman,” I said to her, trying my best not to gape. The medical resident, Charles, had warned me that her leg was seriously swollen, but I still almost did a double take when I saw it.
If her left leg was a slender maple, her right was a giant redwood. It measured about three times the circumference of the left and was swollen all the way from her ankle to the very top of her thigh. It was by far the biggest swelling I’d seen in my career.
“How long has it been swollen like this?” I asked Mrs. Schulman.
“More than a month,” she said. “And don’t tell me to elevate it; I have it up all the time. I can’t bend it, I can’t garden. It’s terrible!”
