| lesley153
|
They're OK thanks, Gary.
Platelet count is 719 (726 six months ago). The upper limit is 500 but apparently 700 is an average result for people without spleens.
Haemoglobin's down to 12.8 but that won't take much tweaking. Spinach for lunch, dried apricots after... and an iron supplement.
Those were the only two figures he mentioned before he said come back in nine months!
Yes, I did have one brief exchange of views with a humanoid in the hospital car park. Nothing serious. That's two visits running I've attracted the attention of a mannerless shouty man with an ugly rough voice, a man who wouldn't recognise a sentence if it bit him on the ankle. Perhaps I have a sign on the car that invites irascible men, with nothing better to do, to queue up here to rant through this window.
When I started going, you had to allow an hour to go and get blood taken in an outpatient phlebotomy department, and for the results to get to Haematology. Then they started taking samples in the department, and allowed half an hour before your appointment with the haematologist.
Now the blood is tested in the department too, and the whole thing can be done inside a quarter of an hour. Sometimes progress really is wonderful. |
Reply #4061. Nov 01 11, 8:12 AM
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Professer 
|
Am so pleased All is well Lesley as it can be :)
Reply #4062. Nov 01 11, 9:38 AM
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satguru
|
Glad the tests went well, the numbers mean nothing (my grandma used to announce her blood pressure, not just when we went but whenever she took it during the evening as well) and unless a figure was over about 180 which was clearly too much meant nothing and yours mean even less! I can get heartbeat as since I had tachycardia 47 years ago (that was the first known example but on and off ever since) I know only too well what that should be, but pressures and concentrations need a reference point. Heartbeat should be 60-80 so can easily comprehend 120 or 140 (or worse), but will leave the more arcane figures to the medical staff who know what has to be done with them. I've never coped with numbers unless preceded by a £, and a few basic personal weights and measures if not in metric and that's pretty well enough for me.
I couldn't believe the procedure (unless it was a very good day) at the local hospital, I'd never been before and seems to have been rebuilt as a massive daycare centre to me, the blood test took less than a minute and by the time I found where to sit the woman in front had gone in and come out again, besides filling in the form when I arrived after some woman wouldn't leave the reception area as I think she wanted an immediate appointment for something they didn't even do there, and despite a third explanation in a row she wasn't having it and stood there arguing, I was in and out in around five minutes. Hopefully I won't need one again for another 20 years or so so rather not learn the variations in service directly. And as you mention car parks a woman rushed up to me as I arrived waving a free ticket for well over the time I needed, I'd have paid for over an hour and wasted/donated the majority as I was out after 20 minutes or so. It wouldn't kill them to pay on the way out but then they wouldn't get the extras would they?
Reply #4063. Nov 01 11, 5:29 PM
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| lesley153
|
My resting pulse is 60, and I have no idea what I am in metric.
Ideal haemoglobin levels are around 12 to 15 (gm/dl) for women, 14 to 17 for men. Mine was 14 last time, so it's down one, but still OK, and a lot better than the 7-8 of a few years ago, when I could just about put one foot in front of the other.
The platelet level's ridiculously high - "normal" is about 150-500 - but it's stable, so that's OK too. There are 24 measurements listed, and I don't know what most of them mean, but the haematologist does, and so does Jonathan, so I don't have to.
Last time we were at Papworth, we were given a car park ticket, and we gave it to someone else when we left. Car parks used to be pay-when-you-leave, but guess-how-long-you'll-be must double revenue, because people will usually err on the very safe side. Evil. |
Reply #4064. Nov 01 11, 7:44 PM
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| lesley153
|
| This afternoon I paid Jonathan's tax rebate into his bank account, took earrings to be mended, and took seven pairs of boots to the British Heart Foundation shop. The earrings are gold dangly ones my mother bought in 1958. Last time I tried to wear them, one of the dangles dropped off. The man in the shop said it was a loose link, took it round the back and closed the link up again. The boots are all knee-high leather, and I thought they'd last for ever. They would if I hadn't been wearing sandals for the last 20-odd years, and now they're all a shoe size too small. And what a nice change it made to pay Jonathan's money into Jonathan's bank account. |
Reply #4065. Nov 01 11, 7:49 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
|
Wonderful! If those boots have given 'life' to present day stuff...What more could you hope for? You go, girl.
Reply #4066. Nov 01 11, 9:14 PM
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satguru
|
That's a good one- I think I'll write a letter to the EU weights and measures committee asking them how they measure heartbeats in metric. It could act as the final straw?
I've learnt something about platelets now- I think the spleen removes the old ones among other things so no spleen means too many platelets. Makes sense now. The haemoglobin sounds perfect and glad they didn't find any alcohol or other foreign items in it. Not wanting to offend anyone (but I know we all understand each other here really) the standard answer to an Irish urine sample is 'Yes, it's definitely urine', and once they got the blood and urine samples mixed up, and the doctor came out waving the bottle excitedly saying 'I've found a new blood group! Blood group P!' Oh dear....
Reply #4067. Nov 01 11, 10:41 PM
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Jazmee27
|
"'I've found a new blood group!"
I guess the only thing to say to that is 'wow.'
Reply #4068. Nov 02 11, 5:37 AM
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| lesley153
|
VM, I’ve benefitted immeasurably from their research already. There’s something very wrong when research into heart disease and cures has to be funded by charity... but it’s better than not existing. I’m just relieved, grateful, and possibly only here because, it exists. I’ve given things to a variety of charity shops but I think BHF will be the main one now.
The boots that are in good nick can be sold. If they can’t be sold, the leather can be recycled. Same with clothes and books – they no longer have to be “of saleable quality” to be acceptable. Prices for bulk textiles are rising and scruffy books can go in the recycling. Bit like that old line about nothing on a pig ever being wasted: you can eat everything on a pig except its squeal.
David please don’t ask them about metric pulses, because they’ll think of a way to do it. First thing will be to abolish all multiples of twelve. As well as recycling old cells, the spleen seems to be involved in the immune system. If I’d had a spleen, I might not have come back from a package fortnight in Tunisia with dengue fever, and I don’t suppose the 1996 endocarditis would have taken hold either.
Wow indeed. They might have found a teensy bit more alcohol than usual shhh. Reminds me of the joke about the single Irish girl who tells her mother she’s pregnant. Mother thinks for a moment and says “But are you sure the baby’s yours?”
|
Reply #4069. Nov 02 11, 6:45 AM
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| trojan11
|
Wow! That was an incredibly witty and knowing response from the Irish mother. Fact is, some low life might well have stuffed an unwanted baby inside her when she was sleeping - how was she to know?
Reply #4070. Nov 02 11, 7:22 PM
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| lesley153
|
| Wasn't it just! Some low-life might have done exactly that - it happens a lot more often than we think. |
Reply #4071. Nov 02 11, 7:41 PM
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Jazmee27
|
Unfortunately
Reply #4072. Nov 03 11, 8:15 AM
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Professer
|
sadly it does happen
Reply #4073. Nov 03 11, 8:36 AM
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| lesley153
|
| Think it's time to rewrite the biology books! :) |
Reply #4074. Nov 03 11, 10:03 AM
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| trojan11
|
Not necessarily. Zeus, Apollo and a good few others belonging to that hedonistic bunch made quite a habit of it....or so I'm led to believe. :)
Reply #4075. Nov 03 11, 10:32 AM
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| lesley153
|
| Ooh yes - didn't one of Zeus's daughters pop out of his head? |
Reply #4076. Nov 03 11, 10:35 AM
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| trojan11
|
OK, not perfect. They were still working out the mechanics of it all.
Reply #4077. Nov 03 11, 11:29 AM
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| lesley153
|
| They got the hang of it eventually, didn't they? |
Reply #4078. Nov 03 11, 11:36 AM
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Jazmee27
|
"didn't one of Zeus's daughters pop out of his head?"
Makes for quite an image
Reply #4079. Nov 03 11, 2:44 PM
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| lesley153
|
| And a throbbing headache too, by all accounts. |
Reply #4080. Nov 03 11, 3:46 PM
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