Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Blood counts...

So I had my weekly infusion appointment. The nice nurse (who is good at accessing the port without pain) informed me she is leaving the office, which is a bummer. I'm sure they have other competent people but I have a good relationship worked out with this woman: she doesn't hurt me, and I don't scream bloody murder. Hopefully that can carry over to whomever is next responsible for me.

One thing that drives me grazy about Dr. GD's office is they won't give me my damn labs. It's MY BLOOD for Pete's sake. I'm entitled to it, and I also know how to interpret it better than anybody there except the doctors. But for example, they didn't have last week's labs in my file yet, because "the doctor hasn't reviewed them." This, I feel, is bullsh*t.

What they DID have was today's bloodwork, which I wasn't crazy about. White count is 3.7, which is getting low. Hemoglobin is 13.4, which is okay but not as high as I'd like. Platelets are at 108, which isn't great since they'll be going down for another two weeks while I"m on Revlimid and they'll probably get well below 100 this time. Plus that RDW marker, which I've come to associate with Myeloma since it was screwy when I had it, is back up to 14.3 -- just a little outside the normal range, which I don't like.

I would have liked to see the immunofixation results to assuage my concerns. But they weren't available. GRRRR....

2 comments:

  1. We had the same experience. When they said the doctor hasn't seen them yet, I said "Awe, come on, don't pull that on me, they are our records.". Then they went and printed me a copy and have been doing it ever since. One time when I went to pick up a drug prescription they had a copy of the lab results also without me even asking. This is how it should be. Quest Diagnostics will let you log into their system to get lab results if the ordering doctor authorizes it.

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  2. Why do blood work if the doctor isn't even going to review them? A week and he still hasn't looked at them...wow....24 hours would be max in my book.

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