Well after much debating and going back and forth with my dr today he called and said come in get a phlebotomy. I was excited because my religious beliefs require that we not give or accept blood. You see my RBC's are high,I have had 2 episodes of blurry vision in one eye with headaches,fatigue and a few other symptoms for Polycythemia.
I'm 54 and been on Test for 2 1/2 years. For the last 6 months my blood count has been creeping up and was at 54% last test. My general practice dr that prescribes my testosterone was against a phlebotomy so he sent me to an oncologist/hematoligist. Well after much testing he said your counts not that bad. Then he calls my office and says just stop taking the test. I was livid. So I called back and left message that we agreed on a phlebotomy and I wasn't taking no for an answer. Said I am not trying to play dr but everything I have researched is those who give blood their % rates drop quickly. They also do it on a regular basis. Well he called back and said ok come in today. So I did. But things took a bad turn. How so?
The nurse said are you squeamish of afraid of large needles? I said no. She got started and we were chatting fine. After about a half pint she said for some reason its going slow. Can you pump your fist while we continue? I said sure. Well she kind of walked around for a bit and everything seemed fine. But then out of nowhere I started feeling dizzy,broke out in a sweat. I raised my hand to another nurse behind the desk and said nurse,something is wrong. Then the last thing I remember saying was "God remember me please". I must have known something was really wrong. Apparently I passed out. But this was no ordinary "pass out". Why?
Well I awoke to all the nurses mumbling saying his blood pressure and vital signs dropped. As I came out of the groggy state with the dr over me I had tubes in my nose and my feet elevated. I was nauseas and could barely speak. I felt extremely weak and could barely talk. I said "I must have fell asleep". She said no you passed out. She said first time anyone had ever passed out during a phlebotomy. I thought to myself that was strange. I asked why she wasn't with me when I was passing out. She said she was going to get some saline solution. She said she was worried as they had a stretcher there and a defibrillator. I was thinking this was odd but didn't have my wits about me. They kept me there for 2 hours until I could walk. They kept saying call someone to drive me home. I insisted I was ok but looking back I wasn't. Really I see things in a whole different light now. Why?
Well I remember looking at the blood bag. It looked like it was going to explode. My take is she got distracted and forgot about me. The blood was too much of a loss and they lost me for a bit. I can't prove this. I did ask her why the bag was so stretched,she said some saline went into the bag. Find that odd. To top it off she said the dr wants me to come back and do it again next week. I'm sitting here thinking I don't want to ever do that again but I probably will. I asked her how much saline she put in. She said a little more than half the blood we took out. I said isn't that counterproductive to lowering my volume? She said no. I said then why does the dr want me to take more out next week when he was against it in the first place? She said ask the dr next week.
Ok now you know the whole story. I am just now getting to feel almost normal again so I wrote this. What's your take on what I consider a botched phlebotomy? Am I reading too much into it?