bloodwork debacle

there are two reasons i don't go and get my bloodwork done as often as i ought to.

1. every tech, nurse, what have you in that office has NO art with a needle. None. This last week really took the cake, though. The entire inside of my elbow was swollen, achey and stiff, and the bruise was truly epic. i probably should have taken a pic. now i just look like a recovering junkie instead of an active one. and i'm not one to complain about needles or anything. and i know when you get stuck as often as i do, sometimes it's gonna get botched. but still. everyone who's seen this thing says its ridiculous.

2. every time i get blood done, i get a message on my phone, *and my parents*, that sounds like that nurse has heard the fourth horseman and the apocalypse is headed our way. gloom and doom, fire and brimstone. usually over something really small, too. last time my potassium was up literally by a couple decimal points. another time it was iron (which was a little low, but again, pretty typical in a 20-30-something female). another time it was blood sugar. every time the message; "there's something urgent about your bloodwork that we need to get on top of NOW." literally like i'm hemorrhaging or dying or something. then they call my parents. so, on top of dealing with her irritating self, now i have to peel mom off the ceiling because she stresses out about the message.

3. okay, so there's a third, little reason. every time i get one of these messages, i get wound up. not like mom, who just comes completely unglued. my rational mind says it's probably something small, something totally fixable, or even a fluke (not the wormy kind, god forbid!). Unfortunately my not-rational mind is much, much louder. So. I stay up all night waiting to call the doc first thing in the AM when they open. lack of sleep isn't something i handle as well as i did once upon a time, back in the day...

Okay. Background accomplished. I got one of those "the end of teh world is nigh" calls the other day. So I sat up all night, like i always do, and called them right away in the AM. (Just for general giggles, the betting pool was a bust. it wasnt' iron or sugar) here's the stats.

potassium 5.9 (norm 3.6-5.0)
chloride 114 (norm 110)
calcium 10.4 (norm 10.3)

and drum roll...neutrophiles. .9 (normal is 1.5-7.5). so they aren't actively in teh basement but they sure are looking at the door. this could be caused by remicade. i'm following up with my family doc this thursday, and remicade has been postponed until we get some stuff sorted out. they'd like to re-run the blood, but crap. i am not made of money! how far off could it be? (that's a serious question)

any thoughts? advice? suggestions? if i can't do remicade anymore, what are the options (i'm afraid i already know, but in case i missed something)?

oh. and the PA at my Remicade place says "stay away from sick people." well gee. if only he coulda come up wtih that advice a couple days sooner. wouldn't you know sunday i came down with a cold?

Hi Garden Lady, Sorry that was so brutal. I was told by a blood draw person that when I'm dehydrated it makes the blood draw more difficult. Sure enough, when I make sure to hydrate before my blood draws, they go WAY better. So that might help you too. I've seen other folks comment about this on the Lupus board too and it seems to help most of us. Sniper is right about those messages. Ask your doctors office(s) NOT to leave detailed messages for you. They should just ask that you return the call. If you have a cell phone, then have them call you directly instead of leaving messages on the home phone. Then your mom wouldn't be involved at all until you are ready to involve her. Blessings!

Actually, I would rather they leave me a detailed message than "there's something wrong with your bloodwork that needs to get handled NOW." (this is the message she leaves regardless of what's wrong with the bloodwork. i could be a hair anemic and the sky WOULD be falling) At least then it isn't totally up to my wide, wonderful imagination what could be wrong. And they don't leave details with my folks -- they leave the same 'the world is ending' vague message with them, an Mom's imagination is even wilder than mine. Hence the problem! (eye roll) And, beyond that...the results were in the next day, so I really wasn't expecting that call. I thought it would be the end of that week at the earliest. I'd have been stuck up all night this time around anyway.

I think I'm going to talk to them -- I don't know quite what to do, though. I want my folks to remain an emergency contact, but it's like they're using the emergency contact as a secondary contact, which is really annoying. I thought emergency meant that, ya know, if I keel over in the office and have to be taken to the hospital, they call the emergency contact. Lab results from a blood draw where I walked in and out again on my own power shouldn't qualify as an emergency.

This whole thing is making me want to whack my head on something really hard. It's like I'm surrounded. I've got a gastro that scolds me for not going in for my blood work (rightfully so), when I do go in for blood work, it's a total hatchet job. Then I get what we've affectionately come to know as "the call," from Nurse Chicken-Little. Then my parents get the message from Nurse Chicken-Little. Next thing I know, I'm short on sleep, everyone is running around like an idiot, usually over something miniscule, and I'm in the middle of it trying to keep my cool and really assess the situation for what it is. Then I have to peel Mom off the ceiling and explain it to her. And I have to call the nurse and make sure that everything on their end is cool. And somewhere in all this, I'm supposed to get my own stuff done so that we can keep a roof over our heads and eat and what?

Here's the fun part from today. I called my primary doc's office to see if they had the results faxed over yet. Nurse Chicken-Little, for all her squawking and demanding that I see my primary, after I talked to her Friday, still hasn't faxed the results to my primary. In that vein, (no pun intended), just what the devil are me and the primary supposed to discuss when he doesn't have anything to GO ON? Because the very same person who acted like my labs signalled the apocalypse hasn't feed a sheet of paper through a machine with a phone number punched in.

Okay. Deep breath. Coming down from the rant.

Anyone had trouble with neutrophils before? And what did you do about it? That's the main thing here. THe minerals...meh. whee. those will right themselves, I think. It's those buggered little neutrophils that are nagging me. So what's the score?

I agree with Sniper, Hippa and Butterfly needles.