Where's the Beef?
    In case you're wondering, it's here, almost every night. If it's not beef, it's dark meat chicken (for mom, white meat for me) or ground buffalo, when I can get it. Ever since her hemoglobin near crisis, I've been not only relying on her usual (since last September) 900 mg of iron polysaccharide per day, but I've been pushing the beef. Beef is the highest and most digestible common source of iron. Yes, I know all about dark green leafy vegetables, broccoli, blah, blah, blah, but if you want to really boost someone's hemo and hematocrit, you gotta go with the politically incorrect stuff, the stuff that has become the new cause of global warming. Buffalo is actually better, but it's hard to get, here. When I found some last week I bought three quarters of a pound, made some very flavorful hamburgers and assumed it would be available, well, whenever. Apparently it's only a sometime item, and snapped up quickly, at that. Venison is a cut or two above beef, too, and so is bear, but nobody's selling those here. Yet.
    I forwent the CBC on Saturday, investing in the possibility that I'm not imagining Mom's increasingly peachy complexion. It's not all the way, there, yet, but I think it's getting there. Tomorrow, though, I've decided, it'll be time to draw some blood and see if her anemia really is improving. It's a tricky business, trying to tell, by sight, what Mom's hemoglobin might be. The second to the last time I expressed concern to her doctor's FNP that it might be "a little low" because I thought Mom looked pale was in late November. Her hemoglobin came in at a spectacular 11.0. Then, again, in January, I thought it might be in the nines and it was 10.1. When it came in at 8.1 on February 28th I was shocked that it was that low. I hadn't thought she looked that pale and figured, as well, that her weakness was primarily due to that horrible cold. Now, she's not nearly as weak, her blood pressure is up (it drops when she's severely anemic), she's standing much straighter than before, but every time I search her lips, her general complexion and her fingernails I imagine that I'm seeing too much white, even though I can also clearly see peach. I'm nervous. Although the doctor assured me last week that it wasn't necessary to draw for a CBC for "14 days", I simply can't wait, and I'm dreading the results.
    She's still coughing a bit more than usual, still seems to be more tired than usual, but she's also still working off the dregs of her cold. All in all, although her bout with it was just as severe as mine, her fourth week is much easier on her than my fourth week was on me. Of course, my fourth week fell during her second week, which was a bear of a week for her and probably had a significant impact on how I felt. Her overall cold experience, as well, included plenty of rest. Mine did not.
    I'm pleased that I've so far avoided taking her into the hospital for a blood transfusion. The husband of one of my very good friends up here was in the hospital ER last week having a severe cut from a fall stitched up and managed to also receive a hearty dose of this cold while he was there.
    If it turns out that she needs a transfusion this week, I'll know on Tuesday and we'll do it then and continue our plan for her "routine" doctor's appointment on Thursday in Mesa. I'm sure, even if she needs a transfusion, it'll amount to only a pint and she'll be more than ready to travel on Thursday.
    In the meantime, I continue to look for a local doctor. I've got yet another name that I'll be calling tomorrow. Truth is, I'm half expecting yet another "no". I've gotten ten "nos" in the last two months, seven of them in one blow. I feel like I'd have more luck taking out a sizable loan to subsidize her Mesa doctor's move up here.
    Oh well. What can you do?
    Busy, busy week ahead.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 01:04   email  this post