medical mystery

So apparently I am a medical mystery. This whole ordeal goes back about a month and who knows how much longer it will continue. There will be some possibly TMI stuff so beware.

• December 14th – A trip to the doctor because my PCOS has been going haywire and I am REALLY tired of having 2-3 cycles a month. They did labs and my white blood cell count was 25,000. Normal is between 4,000-9,000. Most common cause of elevated white blood cell counts is an infection.

• December 19th – Follow up visit with my PCM and more blood work. Turns out I have a UTI (even though I had NO symptoms at all) and they think that is the cause. I don’t remember what my white blood cell count was but I started antibiotics.

• December 28th – Follow up visit after my round of antibiotics. UTI is gone but my white blood cell count is still 22,000. My PCM is lost as to why, so she orders a chest xray to check on lymph nodes and refers me to the hematologist.

• January 14th – Labs and then an appointment with the hematologist. My white blood cell count is now at 24,000 and there are asymmetrical white blood cells in the smear she looked at but they are normal (huh?). She did bring up the “c” word but says I don’t fit the most common stereotypes; I’m not older, I’m not a smoker, I don’t feel sick, etc. My choices are a flocytometry test or just cut to the chase and do a bone marrow biopsy/aspiration. I opted to do the flocytometry test first, since it is just a regular blood draw on my end. I will probably still have to have the bone marrow biopsy but right now, I just could not mentally fathom it. My aunt died from Hodgkin’s Disease after a bone marrow transplant and while I know it is not the same, it still bothers me.

• January 17th – Had my flocytometry test done up at the base after and whole fiasco of them trying to tell me they don’t do it. I sure hope they got it shipped off to Wilford Hall like required. Results will take 1-2 weeks, so here I sit…waiting.