After leaving the pediatric office, the baby and I went two doors down to the lab. It was a simple toe prick for a small blood sample to complete a CBC. He was a real trooper! He only complained about her squeezing his toe to get more blood out! :)
Fast forward two days. I receive a call from the same nurse practioner who had checked him out for his well child visit. His blood test was back. The hemaglobin and hematocrits were both low. She called in some iron drops and requested I make a follow up appointment. She also thought it would be a good idea to do another CBC, only this time, instead of a toe prick, it would be drawn from his arm.
A week later we were back in the office. She had printed out the lab report to show me. Then the she looked in his ears (he had 'goopy' allergy eyes the day of his checkup, and she wanted to make sure it had not caused an ear infection) and saw just a little bit of infection. Otherwise, he looked great.
We left the office with TWO lab orders this time. Another routine CBC (to compare numbers to) AND one for an iron panel (to attempt to determine WHY his iron was so low). The nurse practioner had told me that on occassion, the tiny sample of the toe prick skews the results and when a venous draw was done, the numbers often looked much better.
Two doors down to the lab...
That's when it got a little tough for this mama. You see, the lab only had one worker. THAT meant mama had to hold him down and keep his tiny little arm still while the lab lady inserted the needle and withdrew not one, but two vials of blood from my 9 month old baby. :(
He was a trooper, again. His screaming and crying were mostly about being held down. He stopped both as soon as she was done and he was able to sit up again! :)
We walked out of the lab light hearted. The venous draw CBC would show a true reading and all would be well...
No comments:
Post a Comment