I’ve been slowly catching up on the health things I didn’t do last year when things were a lot scarier with the pandemic. It’s a process to catch up, but I think I finally am seeing the end of what I need to do. And some of the things that were on my catch-up list were things that I put off for a bit so I could combine appointments. I especially wanted to do that when it came to doing blood work.
I knew I would need to have my blood drawn now so I could get my liver MRI (they have to check kidney function before an MRI since I have to be able to process the contrast they use without issues). But when I went in for my regular check-up recently, my doctor mentioned that I hadn’t done just the regular check-up blood work in several years. In fact, the last time I did it was right before my liver tumors were found. The blood work showed something wrong with my liver and I was about to do another blood draw when the tumors were found and we realized that was the reason. So along with some of the specific blood work I needed, she added in all the regular tests too.
I put off doing my blood draw until I knew I needed to do my kidney function test. There’s no point in me doing those on different days. And I also figured I might as well get my flu shot and torture myself with more needles (I couldn’t get my Covid booster at that time, or I might have done that too). And I did it on a day that I knew I’d have lots of time since I never know how I will react to needles. I’ve been doing better lately, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t faint in the future.
Fortunately, when I went, the hospital was pretty empty so I didn’t have to wait a long time to get my blood drawn. Unfortunately, between all the blood work I needed to have done, I needed 6 vials to be drawn. That’s just a long time to make sure I don’t faint. I got very lightheaded and I was worried a few times I was about to pass out, but I made it through. But I must have looked horrible because the doctor who did my blood draw didn’t want me to leave right away and asked if I needed to be seen by anyone. I knew I’d be fine (plus if I had doctors come to look at me, it was probably going to be expensive and take several hours). But I waited about 10 minutes before I left so he knew I’d be ok.
After that, I had to go to urgent care to get my flu shot because the tent they do flu shots in was already closed that day (I didn’t think about it having reduced hours on the weekend). But that was pretty quick too since they were able to get me into a room within a few minutes. That went a bit better than the blood work and I didn’t have any moments I felt like I was going to faint. I just had to deal with the reaction I usually get from flu shots (just feeling a bit run down and a sore arm, but it’s worth it).
Spending my day doing work with needles isn’t my ideal way to spend a day off, but I needed to do this. And I’m glad I did because almost all my blood work has improved since the last time I got it done! There are a few things that are a little out of the ideal range, but they were out of the range in the past and I’m much closer to normal now. There’s nothing in my blood work showing I’m at a higher risk for anything. I know some people might assume I’m pre-diabetic or have high cholesterol, but both are in the normal range and everything seems to show that I am healthy! Even though I was pretty certain that would be the case, it’s nice to have real concrete proof of that too.
Now I just have 2 more things involving needles that I know I need to do: get the IV for my MRI and get my booster shot. And I hope both of those go as smoothly as this all did.
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