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Friday, July 20, 2012

I need to make this quick because Lisa's just taken to her bed with what she describes as "shooting pains" in her lower abdomen, so either she's entering the early stages of labour, or she's poisoned herself with home-made pasta bolognese. I'm not sure if I need to pack her bag for the labour ward, or change my plans for dinner, but either way I think action is required. I just don't know who to phone first: the hospital or Pizza Hut.

But on the subject of health-related phone calls, I rang my doctor this afternoon for the results of the blood test I had on Tuesday. Having received the rundown of results from the receptionist, it seems that that my liver, thyroid, cholesterol and blood glucose levels are all fine (so I'm not diabetic yet), but two of the tests produced dodgy outcomes, and they're both related to my white blood cell count.

The advantage of writing this blog is that I can enter the words 'white blood cell count' into the little box in the top right, and discover that it was actually more than two years ago when I was first told about my dodgy blood cells. The normal white blood cell count of someone without any hideous diseases is between 4 and 11. In June 2010 mine was only 3.1, so much like Tim Westwood, my blood was nowhere near white enough.

Five weeks later it had edged up to 3.4, and I was told to have it checked again in three months time. I finally got around to it in January 2011, at which point it was 3.8, and my doctor got bored with testing me. So it's not been checked since, but judging by the doom-laden way the receptionist told me that I need to see the doctor, it's not improved much over the past eighteen months.

According to the NHS website, "A low white blood cell count may be due to problems with your bone marrow, a viral infection or more rarely, cancer of the bone marrow. However, a low white blood count can also be genetic and of no significance".

So that's reassuring: it's either cancer or nothing. I've got an appointment next Thursday to find out which.

2 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

Has your son got his spiked running shoes on?

Phil said...

If he has, he can pop out for the pizza.