Heading off to university is a big life change, but Chloe Kerton of Toronto was eager to get started, make the most of residence life and all the opportunities for competitive sports. In the fall of 2022, the 18-year-old commerce student was four months into her first semester at Dalhousie University in Halifax, right in the middle of exams, when she suddenly felt a bit off from her usual energetic and capable self.
“I was at the gym with one of my friends. We took a study break and I remember I was doing a plank and my body didn’t feel right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it just made me worried,” Chloe says. “The next morning I woke up and I felt the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life.”
She could hardly move, and her skin was hot and cold at the same time. Dressed in multiple layers of sweats and a blanket with an attached hoodie that she pulled tight around her head, she took a Tylenol and stayed in bed trying to study as best she could. It might have been a bad flu that left her feeling like she’d been “hit by a truck” and she was prepared to tough it out.
But she ordered dinner at around 7 p.m. and was rolling up her sleeves to eat when she noticed strange marks on her arm that hadn’t been there the day before – a patchwork of pink and red bruising. “I’d never seen anything like that before, so I texted my friend and my mom to ask them what they thought,” she says of her rising alarm. “They were like, ‘that doesn’t look good.’”