Anemia - Part 2

A blood lab tech comes in at 5am to take more. I tell him I'm supposed to have it drawn at 8am. He says I'm on the schedule and takes blood anyway. I tell him I have a shunt. Can't use it because they can't use the 'innie' for outgoing blood.

Time to try to drift off again. Or go to the bathroom.

Eventually, they take blood again. Eventually, the doctors begin to make the rounds.

They want me to stay. The bloodcount is up to 9.7 and that is more than double the admission number. (That must have been around 4 - they wouldn't tell me.) They want to scope me down and up to look for sites that are bleeding. And possibly do the 'swallow the camera' pill to check the small intestine if they don't see anything on the first 2 tests. The head honcho gastroenterologist must have mentioned cancer about 3 times as a possibility to eliminate.

I am feeling like anything but an intelligent human being at this point.

I have been taking NSAIDS in the form of Advil and Vimovo. Way more than 1000 mg per day before I started the Vimovo. I went through this a few years ago when I was taking Aleve. I had the scopes. They found irritation and nothing else, no active bleeding. And that was when I was throwing up brown stuff.

I HAVE RA.

I have been in the hospital 18 hours with 2 classic symptoms of RA (anemia and low vitamin D) and no one has: 

• given me any pain meds
• shown a rheumatologist the door to my room

I took the gastro's card and checked out of the hospital. The admitting Dr's stand-in had to release me. She insisted I could not be treated by a GP or PA for rheumatoid autoimmune disease. I can ONLY be treated by a rheumatologist. She gave me a prescription for Vicodin with Aleve. Even though she is not a rheumatologist.


I'll continue to take iron pills and vitamin D and see my PA. Who at least knows I have RA, even if I have to wait for him to learn more about it by treating me.

Anemia - Part 1

My PA told me to go to emergency after my last appointment. He was surprised to see my haemoglobin count was 3 on my initial bloodwork in Nov.
Somebody really dropped the ball on that one. Normal minimum is about 12. I always used to be around 15. A 3 is like, um, dead.
He sent me down the hallway for bloodwork again. This time they called the next day and told me to go to emergency. My daughter was at her job tutoring a homebound student. The receptionist on the phone wanted me to call an ambulance.
OK, wait a minute. I lived with a '3' for how long? I have no insurance. I can't pay for the ambulance (figure at least $800). I think I'll survive an hour or so until Jen gets home.
Off to the hospital. Only took a little over another hour before I was seen by someone. Who took more blood. Another hour goes by. (I kind of expected this timetable as my dad had been in the hospital with the same problem earlier this year.)
Low blood count, again.
The Dr asks me if I'm dizzy every time she comes into the room. Well, yeah, between it being about 80 degrees in this room and the power of suggestion, I could have answered yes. You may be actively bleeding, we need to do a digital exam. OK, been there before, have at it. Another half hour for results.
Finally, one test that's negative.
We're admitting you to give you blood transfusions. Great. No bed yet. Jen goes home because it's after 10pm and she is exhausted. The nurse eventually starts the blood transfusion in ER because the nurse getting me a room went to lunch.
Gee, when I manage to get transported to an actual room, they do all of those diagnostics all over again plus a nursing assessment. I'm hooked up to an automated heart monitor/bp/oxygen machine again. The comfort level of the bed is the pits. The transfusion bag is almost done - get the next one going. Give blood again for more tests. One bright spot is that they allow me to go the whole five feet to the bathroom door as long as someone is there to watch me and I pull the cord for assistance when I'm done. Trust me, I am as afraid of falling as they are I'm about to fall.
Lie down and watch the bag. I'm pretty awake. Nursing shift change. Get assessed again by the new nurse. She unhooks the empty bag from my shunt and tells me they'll draw blood in 6 hours for another blood count. I kind of drift off.