Monday, November 19, 2012

Is It the Machine? Or Me?

So, in honor of National Diabetes Month, Walgreen's is doing a free A1C in their take care clinics or 24 hour locations.  Hey, you can't beat free.  And who doesn't obsess about their A1C constantly?  (What? You don't?  Good for you.) (Liar.)

So I went in.  He pulled out his little Bayer A1C now box, and ran the test.  Error Code.  Hmmm...look in the directions.  That particular error code means there is not enough hemoglobin to run the test.  Or, that he didn't shake it enough.  Let's do it again.

Prick the finger.  Shake the blood.  Lalalalala.  Wait 5 minutes.  Same error code.

"What's your hemoglobin?"

Um.  Well, I know a lot medically about myself.  Ask me my cholesterol.  Ask me my average blood pressure.  Ask my last a1c, or what my blood sugar was at any given time.  These are things I can answer.  But my current hemoglobin?  Can't pull that off the top of my head, sorry.

So I left without my free A1C.  Not the end of the world.  The guy at Walgreen's calls me a few hours later.  He ran a control on the machine and that worked.  He thinks I should have my hemoglobin checked, said "well, your blood did look a little puny there." OK, then. Huh.

So now I am obsessively googling  low hemoglobin, which the symptoms for are very vague.  Pale skin...well, I'm kind of a vampire anyway....difficulty concentrating....um..not sure?  I pulled out the results of my last CBC.  Last hemoglobin was 13.  So now I can answer that too.

My next appt is in a month.  So I think I can wait.  And a large part of me still thinks it was the machine.  But who knows.  It's not like my body is the best it can be.

It was nice of him to call and tell me he ran the control, though.  Super nice.


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