Cowgirl Foiled!

Cowgirl didn't get the job done. Tried awful hard, though.

Phone call attempts:

Dr. BladderKing: out of town.

Dr. BladderKing's on-call bladder acolyte substitute: in surgery all day, can't be reached.

Dr. Hometown general practitioner: on vacation all week

Dr. Hometown general practitioner's stand-in: bingo! We got worked into the schedule.

They took Cowboy Billy's blood. He looked so white, we were making Dracula jokes. And the poor cowboy felt so physically terrible that he couldn't even sit in a chair in the waiting room and wait for the blood results--had to go lie down in the car.

But the blood test results weren't what we expected. Bill really wanted to score at least one transfusion, desperate to feel better.

But according to Dr. Hometown general practitioner's stand-in, even though TWELVE of Bill's blood test results came back abnormal, the doctor didn't feel that any treatment was necessary.

WHAT!

His kidney function was down to stage 3 (stage 5 means dialysis) of filtration, with a Urea Nitrogen of 26, when the normal range is 7 to 18. Plus his creatinine was high (kidneys).

His liver function was fouled up with an ALT score of 55, where normal is 10 to 40. This is the first time he has shown liver problems.

His red blood count was low. Hemoglobin was low. Also low were HCT, MCH, and MCHC, which, according to my pitiful attempts at googling test score meanings, show that he is missing red blood cells, and that the ones he has are "pale." This might be called hypochromic anemia. Either that, or I've messed up the name of it, which I saw on wikipedia, about 24 research pages ago.

Finally, his platelet count was really high. The normal range is 165 to 385, and his score was almost 500! This means he has a much-increased risk of a blood clot.

Well, our cowboy was disappointed to find out that he was sent home empty-handed. He was ready to kick a cactus! Lasso a lizard! Rattle a rattlesnake. Stomp on a heifer's hoof. (Somebody stop me.)

And I felt like I didn't win the stuffed pony for him. Nothing I did today led to any relief for him.

So plan B: Tomorrow, His Royal Bladderness is back at work, so I'll call his nurse in Durham and see when we can get down there for the followup visit. At that time, I'm sure they will take blood, and maybe they can find some way to help the bruthuh out.

Cause the bruthuh needs helpin' out real bad.

Love to all.