Blood Tests Can Be Fun

I just got back from a visit to my primary care physician. It's getting harder and harder to keep track of all the medical-related things I have to keep track of now...my pills, my appointments, who is in charge of what...I mention this because I've had to explain about five times to people what this appointment was checking me for.

I had to have my parents drive me to this one; my wife was is at work and had missed many days already taking care of me right after the surgery. They would ask if this was when the staples were coming out, or if my incision was being looked at, etc...

No, I said, this one is my doctor telling me that my blood pressure is too high, my cholesterol levels suck, and my diabetes is going to end up blinding me. "Oh," they said.

My father should have known this already since he took me to the lab Friday for drawing the bloodwork and samples to be ready for this appointment. But that's okay. I'm slowly starting to believe that no one listens to what I say anyway at this point. I don't know if I'm becoming paranoid or if I really am disappearing.

At any rate the lab results were, surprisingly, much improved across the board. Even my "good cholesterol" was flagged as too low ("Probably because of your post-surgery diet right now.") My cholesterol, kidney function, liver...some of the numbers aren't "out of the woods" entirely, but everything had made shifts into either the safe zone or close to the safe levels. Even my blood glucose level was near 95 at the time of the blood draw.

I still get to keep my current roster of medications but I'm supposed to have another appointment in two months to follow up. Maybe they'll remove some of the medications at that point; the numbers in my labs today are, despite being better, are still influenced by the medications.

For once I went to the doctor and had good news.

I also had my doctor take a look at the incision. This morning I woke up and had my dressing a big more bloodied than usual. Not soaked, but still higher than I had come to expect.

The doctors weren't concerned. They explained that I had a blood clot under there and that the body will reabsorb the clot as things healed; the bleeding isn't how it's supposed to go away and it isn't a good thing, per se, but as long as the clot didn't become infected, the best thing to do was continue keeping it clean and change the dressing as necessary.

Clots can become infected?

Turns out that yes, they can. The doctors (and I'm using the plural because my doctor is a nice woman whom I've been going to for several years and for the past year or so I've been seen by her resident then the appointment is wrapped up by her so I kind of have two doctors) explained that blood is a great medium for bacteria to grow in and the hematoma (clot) is just blood outside the blood vessels that help protect the wound as it heals. If it starts smelling odd or having a color other than the dark red I currently have on the dressings then I need to get to the hospital. I shouldn't have a problem right now because I'm taking a horsepill antibiotic for the incision site.

The doctors were happy with my progress and congratulated me on my surgery. My next round is Wednesday at which point another doctor is hopefully going to remove the last of the staples and the dietitian is going to graduate me to a "full liquid" diet, where I'll be able to add thinned cream of wheat, pureed soups and thinned sugar free pudding are going to be added to my list of allowed foods.

I'm not chomping at the bit to try them but it will be nice to have some variety. I'm also going to find out if my diet is going to have to start shift from the current "whenever I can remember to have something" schedule to one where I can have just a certain amount at a set schedule so I don't overeat. I know that soon I'll be having to work on techniques to re-learn how to properly eat instead of just having milk and Jell-O when I remember to have it.