Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Did they leave any for me?

I had to go for bloodwork this morning. This new rheumatologist I'm seeing apparently wants to know everything there is to know about me, at least everything you can learn about someone through their blood. I guess that's a good thing in terms of diagnostic efforts when nothing else seems to have worked thus far. He has to start somewhere.
I wonder what his reaction will be when my blood work shows I don't have allergies, but my history clearly proves I do; or when the tests indicate that I am not arthritic, but my history clearly proves I am. Hell, you can look at my fingers and see the evidence of arthritis! Can you tell I've been through this before? My blood tests have always come back indicating NORMAL. Just like my x-rays indicate that everything is NORMAL. He's a young guy, I'm guessing fairly early in his career. So he's very gung-ho and I like that about him. I hope he still likes me once he's had me for a patient for a while!
Anyway, I couldn't believe the number of vials the technician put aside for this exercise; there were easily eight or nine of them. I asked her if she was going to leave any blood for me because I had to get home from there on something! My follow-up visit with the rheumatologist doesn't happen until the end of May so I won't know the results of these tests until then. Who knows, maybe by some quirk of nature my blood will actually reveal some answers of diagnostic usefulness.
My husband and I stopped at a restaurant for breakfast when we left the lab -- neither of us could make the trip home without replenishment. It is, after all, a full fifteen-minute drive from lab to home.

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