Blood work

[maystone]

It took some doing, but I finally got the rest of the results from the blood work I had done on 5/31. Dar had to decipher it for me, of course. The big news was that my SED rate was high, which means that there's an active inflammation going on in my system. We figured that, but this is confirmation; I guess it's pretty high, too. Dar said that a sed rate of 20 is normal, and mine is 40. So I'm double plus normal :) I also have some elevated counts on my red blood cells; they're enlarged in order to compensate for something going on in there. We have no idea what yet, but hopefully the next group of tests will clear that up.

I showed up for my tests on Friday to find that the doctor hadn't left any specific orders of what to draw for. Uh, ooops? Fortunately for me, the nurse who works with her is experienced and unflappable, so she took seven vials of blood figuring that ought to be enough to cover all of the bases. I really, really like her. She's so down to earth and funny, and I'm here to tell you that she does a hell of a blood draw. This is the second time she's taken blood, and each time was virtually painless. Love, I tell you.

We got a closer look at the initial report of the ANA positive titre, and the one condition that was brought up with both the aspects of the test was a little thing called Sjögren's syndrome. (It's pronounced "Show-grins" which is an absurdly chipper name, if you ask me.) We both figure that I have Secondary Sjögren's in conjunction with another primary autoimmune disorder. Now we just have to figure out what.

Onward and upward! Now excuse me while I go try to work up some spit.