Wow, another year has come and gone. That means more now when the road ahead is much shorter than the road behind. I have to be honest, it really, really scares me. It scares me even more that the Great Hunter will be 80 in 2025. That is just an impossible concept for me to grasp. How did this happen? We blinked and we went from middle age to…old (or older) age. Blessedly, the Great Hunter is still in good health. He is finally going to retire on his 80th birthday, but he is such a people person that I think he’ll find it hard when his life shrinks to just a few friends and family. I know I have only a few friends but lots of family and church acquaintances so I manage to stay busy.

He plans to finish the repairs on the camper so we can take some short trips. Unfortunately, the only vehicle we have that can pull the camper is his truck and it’s over twenty years old. We don’t want to make long trips in it even though it is aging well, like the Great Hunter.

Back at the end of August, I began having spiking blood pressure. I’ve been on a low dose of blood pressure medicine for several years, but to be honest, I quit taking it and my blood pressure remained normal. After it started spiking, I started taking it religiously every day. I went to see my primary care physician and she decided to do some blood work to see if there was anything in it that might hint as to why my blood pressure had suddenly risen, and I mean to the 160-180s. The blood work came back and everything was normal except that it showed I had high red blood cells, high hemoglobin and high hematocrit. Funny thing is though, over the past five years, each time I’ve had blood work done, these same factors have been high and no one has ever commented on it. So my PC referred me to a hematologist for further testing.

I’ve been going to this clinic building for probably ten years and never noticed that off to the left of the lobby was a long hallway leading to other offices, specifically, the Cancer Center. What? I stopped and wondered if I had gone to the right office and after looking around, I realized I was at the right place. But a Cancer Center? I met the doctor for the first time and her first comment after looking at my blood test results was “you’ve had this issue for quite some time”. I told her I knew that but no doctor had ever commented on it before. She just kind of “harrumphed”.

She ordered more blood tests and luckily they have a lab right there in the office so it’s very convenient. Before she tested my blood, she told me that if my red blood cell count was over a certain number, I would have to have more blood drawn. This is how they treat you if your blood is too thick (which mine apparently is) to reduce the volume so the red blood cells have more room to move and are less likely to stick together and cause a clot (I think.) Luckily, my RBC was in the normal range and only my hematocrit was high.

She ordered a couple blood tests, but one of which (JAK2) had to be approved by my insurance company before it could be done. It only (!) took three weeks for my insurance company to deny the test because their criteria specified that I have another blood test first, “BCR-ABL”. From trying to understand the Denial of Medical Coverage notice I received from my insurance company, the JAK2 test is done if the BCR-ABL test is negative. Before I had the test, I turned to the god of all knowledge, Google, and found that this test is to diagnose leukemia. What??? Funny, the doctor didn’t mention that. I asked the nurse about it but she denied knowing what the test was. Yeah, right. Lol Good thing, the results were negative.

Now I’m just waiting for the JAK2 test to be approved.  Hopefully, the insurance company will approve it today (the last day of the year and the last day of this particular policy) so we don’t have to ask for approval under my new insurance. (That’s a whole other story.)

As I did when I was diagnosed with Afib, I began learning what I could about all the tests and components of the tests she was ordering. If you’re interested in what I’ve learned so far, click Blood Work Definitions.

Hopefully, the new year will bring good news from the blood work, there will be a diagnosis and I won’t have to have a bone marrow draw.☹