After tax season, I made appointments for an eye exam and a physical. I got an eye appointment pretty quickly, but I couldn't get an appointment for my physical until June 29th. My insurance plan year starts over on August 1, and since I usually don't go to the doctor enough to meet my deductible, I wanted to make sure I got all my appointments done by July 31. I knew I would meet the deductible this year since I was due for an updated bone density test, so I wanted to avoid having to start a new deductible in August.
The eye exam was worrisome because I had tiny aneurysms and hemorrhages in both eyes. The doctor confirmed that I don't have diabetes, then asked me if I'd recently strained myself by lifting something heavy or coughing or sneezing excessively. He asked if I'd been in a wreck in the past couple of weeks. The answer to all of his questions was no, but he was quite concerned. He said that we'd hold off on running tests in case I'd strained myself and forgotten it, but if the status was the same in a few weeks, I'd need to have angiograms of my eyes to find out what was causing the problem. He gave me a grid to look at daily one eye at a time, and said that if the way the grid looked changed, I should come in immediately rather than waiting for my follow up appointment. I did some googling and found out that I might need to have laser surgery, depending on the cause of the problem. Then I remembered that we'd had the carpet cleaned at work, and I had to lift a heavy box onto my desk to clear the floor in my office. I had some peace of mind, thinking that I'd strained myself and forgotten about it.
Finally, the date of my physical rolled around. My email to make the appointment and my email reminder both said that my appointment was at 8:20. I am not a morning person, so I wasn't crazy about an 8:20 appointment, but I know my PA likes to schedule physicals first thing in the morning. When I arrived, they had me in the computer at 9:20, and there were already two people ahead of me. I couldn't drink my coffee until they drew my blood, so I was quite annoyed at being told to 1) get up early to be there at 8:20, then 2) sit and waste an hour. I asked if I could at least get my blood drawn so I could drink my coffee. The coffee soothed my irritation while I waited to see my PA.
We discussed my fatigue and decided on some additional bloodwork. When the PA palpated my abdomen, she thought my spleen felt swollen. Then I thought to mention the swelling in my feet and legs during tax season. She pressed on my legs and said they were swollen now. That was a surprise, since they weren't swollen enough to notice visually. She left the room while I got dressed, and came back with my preliminary labwork. There was a lot of protein in my urine and I was very anemic, but the lab couldn't read my CBC. I went back to the lab to give another vial of blood, but they still couldn't get a reading. I asked the lab tech what could cause that, and she said maybe the machine didn't like the texture of my blood or any number of things. She showed me that in comparison with a vial of blood from another patient, my blood was very thin. I thought that was strange, because I'd noticed that my blood was coming out much slower than normal. She said the outside lab has better equipment and they would surely be able to get a reading.
My PA added a bunch more tests to my bloodwork and said she suspected something metabolic. I asked about getting an iron supplement, but she said that if I'm really that anemic, I need prescription iron. She wasn't sure whether to trust the numbers on the preliminary report since the lab couldn't get a CBC reading, so she said we'd wait for the report from the outside lab before deciding on additional tests and prescriptions. I got my referral for the bone density test and went on to work, expecting not to hear anything else until after the July 4 holiday. The radiology place called me that afternoon and we scheduled the bone density test for July 5.
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