More fun

They’re giving me more blood tests. The doctor was deciding between doing a bone marrow biopsy or the blood tests. Thankfully he chose the tests, blood draws are a lot less painful than the bone marrow thing.

These labs will be more than my usual tests. They include:
• a complete metabolic panel
• a bet2 micro globulin (B2M)
• an Immunoglobulin test (IgG)

The tests are so special this time that they will be sending the blood down to the University of Washington. (I hope it winds up in the right place. If they misdirect it to the English Department the results might come back showing why I have grammar issues.)

They want to measure the level of immunoglobulins, which is their fancy name for antibodies, in the blood.

There are many kinds of IgG’s. Each type of antibody is designed to attack specific bad guys in your blood. For example, one antibody goes after tuberculosis and another chases down cancer. Leuk isn’t too fond of the latter.

And just to add a scary word, they’re looking to see if I have autoimmune disease. Leuk would love that because it would mean the antibodies are having difficulties attacking him.

There is some good news. IgG’s are the ones that can cross into the placenta in a pregnant woman to help protect her baby, so I won’t have to worry about any issues with that.

So now, what about the B2M test? Okay, this one freaked me out. A B2M test is used as a tumor marker for some blood cell cancers. Yikes. Tumors? The doctor said, “Oh, don’t worry about that it’s just the jargon we use.”

Umm, okay…

Well, off I go to get poked again. I’ve had so much blood drawn it’s amazing I don’t look like a dried prune.

I’ll get the results in about a week so you’ll know when I do.