Got A Bit Of A Scare This Week

First, we’re holding off on another dog for now, but I wanted to thank everybody for their comments and we’ll consider everything you folks said, thanks!

I’m a diabetic, so every 3 months or so I get blood taken so the doctors and I can see how control of my blood sugar or lack there of is going. This test as many of you know, but for those that don’t is called the A1C. 2 years ago, my A1C was 14.9 and I weighed nearly 290lbs. Needless to say neither of these numbers are good, also somehow I went from being a tad over 6 foot tall to 5’11, how do you lose an inch in height!?

Anyway, on Monday I got the call from the nurse who leads with “The doctor needs to see you to go over the blood work results”. My response of course can you give me any numbers over the phone? She tells me my white blood count is pretty low, ok I think, so? I look up low white blood cell count on the web and up pops possible HIV or Cancer…. So I call back and ask for some specifics because now my wife is about ready to lose it. She works for an Oncology office and does not want her husband there as a patient.

The nurse tells me my Lymphocytes are 13 and the norm is between 22 to 40 and then starts explaining stuff I don’t understand but the doctor will explain it to me when I come in for a visit. I went there last night with my wife and we find out there are many things that can cause the low numbers but the concern is also that I’m showing elevated white cell counts for another part of the CBC panel. I don’t have the paper work here but they want to rule out Cancer, HIV is out of the question. Today I went and gave more blood, and EKG etc.. and they took an X-Ray of my back, you’d think this wouldn’t take almost an entire day to accomplish but it did.

One other possible cause is the Diabetic drugs I’m on, specifically the injection of Victoza. A study of this drug produced cancer in test mice but the doctor says the chance of dying of Cancer from this drug is much less than dying of Diabetes. So if I have Cancer it’s probably not from this drug, not that I think the doctor would admit it if it was. My doctor is on maternity leave so I have never met with this doctor before, I believe my doctor would be more up front with me, at least I hope she would.

Here is the good news however, my weight is at 254 and my A1C is at 7.8, only .8 away from my minimum target of 7. My weight has gone up a bit from 248 but I’m working on it. Hopefully I get great news on Monday. While at the doctors office he took my pulse around my ankles and he tells me he doesn’t like the pulse in the right leg, I explain to him we have been through this already with my regular doctor and the tests showed my left leg was 133% and my right leg was 125% better than normal blood flow but he remains unconvinced so orders new tests for PAD AGAIN.   So, I tried to get that handled today as well but was unable to so will be calling them again Monday to get a weekend appointment hopefully.

At this point I’m remaining positive and conversations I had at the hospital point that way as well. Some people have low Lymphocytes but looking at my records shows I’m not typically one of them, until now that is, so maybe because of many factors they will remain low or maybe the blood work will show some other reason for it or maybe they’ll show normal or closer to it.

So cross your fingers for good news! Oh joy, tomorrow I go to the dentist!