New Labs, Cool Graphs and a New Search Begins

On Monday, October 19 I had blood drawn at the Lewisville WFBH clinic. I was also supposed to have a complete physical with Dr. Sherafsaleh but that was a disappointing experience on both a personal and professional level. Without going into all the details, this physician/patient relationship is not going to work; I'm pulling the plug. In fact, I've already begun a search for another physician in the WFBH system. I may as well be searching for the holy grail while riding a turtle. It seems every request for an appointment with a WFBH physician you've never seen before is routed through the main appointment call center. If that isn't challenge enough, most well established physicians are already booked up with patients so only the lackeys and most recent med school graduates are available. I really think that was the case with Dr. S. so I'll go back to the proverbial drawing board on that front.

My lab results actually came back the same day as my appointment so I updated my lymphocyte counts to reflect the new data. (See the side panel to the right for my historical lymphocyte counts.) Apparently WFBH does not farm out their lab work to a third party like Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp. Why should they? They're a freakin' medical school and probably have lots of first year med students doing the analyses, not unlike garment factory workers in Bangladesh.

It seems my lymphs are holding steady for the last 3 months after zooming from below 2000 to the 5000 level over the last 2 years. Since Dr. Ellis is the ordering physician for the CBC, the results were posted by her office along with some other interesting labs. Being an analytical and naturally curious person, I decided to create graphs of some of the blood components they examine. Each is the number found per micro-liter of peripheral blood.

Lymphocytes

White Blood Cells

Red Blood Cells

Hemoglobin

Platelets

Here's a brief recap of what each of these blood components do to keep you healthy.

Lymphocytes are a key part of your adaptive immune system. They identify new and old threats to your health in the form of infectious organisms and mount a full scale offensive to wipe them out. Additionally, they create a form of 'memory cell' that allows them to react more quickly to the same infection the next time. Hence, the name adaptive immune system.

White blood cells are the infection killers. These cells are called upon by the lymphocytes to seek out and destroy infections in your body. The can actually travel to the site of infection so they proliferate in the blood quickly when something unknown enters. That's why a high WBC count indicates an infection is present.

Red blood cells are always present in large numbers in the blood and make up the largest fraction of it. Note the magnitude of the numbers on the graph compared to other components. An important task of the red blood cells is to carry hemoglobin throughout the body.

Hemoglobin is the oxygen carrying component of blood and is attached to the red blood cells. It's rich in iron which bonds readily to oxygen thus making it a perfect carrier of that important element. Low hemoglobin means low oxygen and results in anemia, a wonderful little symptom of LGLL to look forward to.

Platelets are what helps your blood to form clots to prevent bleeding out. Low platelets equals hemophilia equals don't cut or poke yourself with sharp objects.

OK readers, the hematology lesson is over for today so we can all go back to our day jobs, whatever they are. Wait! Some readers may be government workers like me so never mind.