#1 Knowing My Numbers

Every year my employer offers a program that provides an incentive for employees to get some blood work done, and thereby, raising awareness of the employees personal health.  In a nutshell,  it gives the company an opportunity to tell you that you need to eat more vegetables.  If you can bear the sales pitch of more broccoli and less steak / burger, the company will contribute an additional $600 dollars to your health savings account.

I can't say that knowing my numbers was a very high priority.  I had missed the "in house" service that was offered at work and I needed to visit a physician's clinic in order to get the blood work done. I was willing to let it slide, but Angie somehow caught wind of the offer and made an appointment for me.  I am glad that she did.  As it turns out, had I gone to the in house service, I would have only found out that my cholesterol and blood pressure looks good. That would not have been the whole picture.

My routine check up and blood draw turned out to be a little odd.  Angie and I were called back to discuss the results with the doctor.  There were several things that raised red flags.

• High Globulin Levels
• Low RBC
• Low Hemaglobin
• Low Hematocrit
• Extremely Low Vitamin D  
• Low Lymph numbers
• Low Lymphocytes
• High Segmented Neutrophils

Needless to say, we did a follow up blood draw to look a little deeper and only found more trouble.

• Low Albumin
• Low Creatinine
• Low Iron
• Ferritin 3X higher than what it should have been
• Sed Rate of 78
• Positive for Antinuclear Antibody
• Negative ANA Titer

 
The results seemed to indicate a massive inflammatory response which they suspected was due to an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or Lupus.  The blood test results indicated that I should be in serious joint pain.  I felt fine,  I had no swelling, no pain, no joint pain to speak of.  I was consequently sent to a rheumatologist who gave me a clean bill of health in exchange for a modest donation of my off spec. blood.  The rheumatologist happened to share a medical practice with an oncologist.  She thought that there was something strange going on and shared my case with him.  The oncologist spent a few minutes reviewing my case and called my cell phone as I was driving home and asked me to turn around and come back to the office. 

****And then our little world changed******

The oncologist spent more time on my medical history than the previous physicians, and asked me some pretty straight forward questions.  I had injured my back in October of 2011.  It was bad enough to put me down for close to a week.  I had never been in so much pain in my life.  I wouldn't eat or drink in fear of having to stand up to use the bathroom.  When I did eat, it was "Angie" portions.  After I was able to get up and move, I resolved that I would loose weight.  I cut my diet to 2000 calories a day and started getting some regular misery exercise.  It was slow but steady loss but it was working and I was committed.  In February my weight loss seemed to starting coming a little easier.  My assumption was that I had finally convinced my metabolism to do me a favor and kick it up a notch.  I also noticed that I started having some severe night sweats.  (we are talking, tough to take your shirt off soaked)  I again, marked it up to a seriously awesome metabolism.  I WAS PROUD!  I continued to drop weight and ended up dropping ~ 60 pounds in 12 months.   My doctor was suspicious.  He asked if I was obsessive about losing weight -  No.  Exercising every day?  - No.   Did it seem to come easy? - Yes.   He basically told me that I may have had some help and suggested getting a CT Scan.