Troubling News

When you're on dialysis, the nephrologists (kidney docs) keep a very close watch on your bloodwork. Dialysis patients get blood drawn every week. Everything from your treatment length to the medicines you receive are determined by your bloodwork results. There are so many calculations done, it's not even funny.

While he was doing rounds today, Dr M told me that I was alarmingly anemic. I thought he was referring to the 10-point-something from a couple weeks ago, but nooooo. He was talking about the 8.3 from this past Wednesday. I had absolutely no idea my blood count was that low. Hemoglobin is supposed to be at least 12 (then multiplied by 3 to get your red blood count). Mine is 24.9. Considering at its worst, my bloodcount was 18, this number was shocking to me. I don't think my blood count has been that low since I began dialysis treatments in 2006.

This does shed some light on some things, however. Every time I try to study, I fall asleep. It's put me way behind on my work this week. I thought I was just getting burned out, but it seems I have a legitimate reason for sleeping instead of studying. I think I'm going to email my Algebra & Grammar professors to see if I can get an extention on a couple of assignments. The math I've been doing isn't sticking in my brain, and it very well could be because I'm so anemic right now.

Starting Monday, I will be receiving iron and EPO (synthetic hormone needed to produce red blood cells) during my dialysis treatments. Both the iron and EPO will continue until my weekly bloodwork shows normal numbers. Once I'm back up to normal levels, the dosages will be adjusted, but they probably won't stop altogether.

The other problem is that it's not known why my blood count dropped so suddenly. Tests are being done to figure that out. Hopefully I will know by the end of next week.