Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Well, Hoopydoo....

Yesterday I received a phone call from Dr. Wurlizter's office re-informing me that I had an appointment with DW on the morrow. The caller also wished to confirm that I had already taken care of my blood work.

"What blood work?" I asked.

"The blood work that was assigned to you six months ago when the appointment was made," she replied.

"No one said anything to me about making any such explorations of my bodily fluids," I rejoined.

"Oh, Dr. Beeblebrox, you say the funniest things. The appointment doesn't make much sense, does it, if the Doctor doesn't haven't any results to look at? Besides, if you will look on the back of your appointment card, you will see that there is a statement about getting laboratory work done the week before your appointment," she said with an audible smirk.

The notice was there, of course, but I was not about to let her get away with it. "What makes you think that I still have the appointment card?"

"For the same reason that you have every book that has ever come home with you during the passed 60 years. You hang on to everything that has been made from trees."

She had me there.

"If you can get to the lab in Provo before five this afternoon that will be in plenty of time". I told her that I would try.

At 11:10 StewJam and I went to play racquetball. We played one game. It lasted 40 minutes. The score was lopsidedly in my favor, but for the final 30 minutes I could not get the last point that won the game. I think that SJ decided to end my misery. And misery it was. As I sat there on the floor trying to recuperate, I had an old Bob Dylan song go through my mind over and over again. It was from "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid".

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Over and over again.

About two in the afternoon I went over to the Swiss Chalet in Provo where they extracted several vile vials for the blood tests, including, I might add, a ferritin check. The little vixen hurt me again.

Today at 2:00, I went to DW's office. They took their pound of Discover Card flesh and then ushered me into the cubical where they weighed me (I guessed 232) where they discovered that I am 236 in regular clothes instead of my PJs. Four pounds of clothes, keys, and wallet! Who knew?

She then prepared to take my blood pressure. "117 over 79", I said.

"What?"

"That's what my blood pressure will be".

There was a moment of silence. "That is exactly what it is. How did you do that?"

"Know thyself, the philosopher saith".

Doctor Wurlitzer breezed in a moment or two later. "Everything's fine. Your creatinine is down from 2.0 to 1.8. At this rate, your kidneys will outlive you by 25 years".

"Lovely," I replied. "As long as I have something to look forward to. And my ferritin?"

He breezed out of the cubicle for a minute or two, and then breezed back in. "It is at 145. Well within acceptable limits."

"You don't know my sister," I muttered.

I have been trying to figure out how my ferritin could have gone up 25 points per month during the last three months when the previous three months it had hardly jumped a point. I suspect that it has to do with being sick for the past month. It is a case of false ferritin count caused by my body fighting the muck that I picked up while visiting the hospital. In any event, I am not particularly worried about it. I will probably have it checked in March. If it goes up again I know where to leave my excesses.

In the meantime I'll keep Knockin on Heaven's Door with StewJam. Tomorrow is another day of wheezing with a racquetball racket in my hand. With any luck at all SJ will whack me in the side of the head and take care of the next year's worth of phlebotomies.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha! That was funny! Especially the part about you keeping anything made from trees...hehehehe!

Nice song. I like Dylan's voice. Very soothing.

P.S. You cheat at racketball.

Katscratchme said...

Yet another reason to not play racquetball.. sounds like serious self-inflicted punishment to me.

Trillium said...

*sigh*
I repeatedly cautioned him about letting his ego drive the way he played. Alas. A waste of breath.

Larsens said...

I heard that you almost died during the many hacking incidents. Your mother in-law was kind enough to share the news. Not sure if she was happy that you survived or disappointed. Although, she had a little smile on her face when she was telling the story. Whatever that means. I'm glad you survived so you can keep us entertained for years to come. Hoping, of course, that when your time comes, your kidney keeps on blogging, if it's supposed to outlive you.

Congrats on your Ferritin count. Don't die on the court.

Rebecca's Oasis said...

i don't want your kidneys to blog that is just creepy... I had a visual with your kidneys having grown arms and legs walking over to your computer to blog...

I would say 15 mins of raquetball should be enough... :)

no more knocking!!!!

Chris said...

I just had an image of a kidney bouncing around on a racquetball court. What the heck-a-ba?

Judie said...

Had a phlebotomy in December because ferritin went to 73. Had the plebotomy ferritin went to 79 Do I know why? No. However I have changed my way of thinking Paul, if it's under 100 leave it be. At our age it doesn't make a whole lot of difference, BUT be careful about transmitting electricity. I understand that with all the iron we have a tendency to do that.

Zaphod said...

Judie, A shocking development....EEEEK!

Unknown said...

I have been trying to find someone else who writes about their HH, and it is hard to find good blogs out there. I have one as well at http://theburnedhand.wordpress.com/

I chronicle my docs visits as well as trivial things I think of:)

Judie said...

Well it appears that my kidneys are not liking what is going on in my body, so off to the specialist on this one. Did find out though that one kidney was two exits. Maybe that is why I have to get up in the middle of the night so often.

Linkbiz said...

My husband is also living with HH and that means so am I and my daughters.. so much so that I wrote a book about the HH. If you want to look into it, please go to my site http://www.theironoverloadebook.com And leave some comments there. It is great to see that you have a sense of humor!